Nvidia is reportedly in advanced talks to acquire Hugging Face in a transaction that may total about $14 billion, up from the $12.9 billion that has been touted for the artificial-intelligence startup.
The purchase is said to include a substantial employee retention component, with the potential for a $1 billion retention package, and would bring Hugging Face’s model hub, datasets and developer tooling into Nvidia’s portfolio alongside its GPUs and infrastructure software.
A switch of focus?
Strategically, the move shifts Nvidia toward owning a major distribution point for open-source models and tooling-deepening a relationship the companies have built over multiple collaborations and prior investment rounds-and signals an intent to extend Nvidia’s reach from hardware into the software and developer ecosystems that shape AI workloads.
The agreement may be reached as soon as this week, and Bloomberg’s reporting is the basis for the deal terms; the companies have not announced a completed transaction in the materials reviewed for this story.
