Nvidia agreed to buy Hugging Face for nearly $12.9 billion, in a deal that the companies formalized on Thursday.
The agreement strengthens Nvidia's bet on AI software, infrastructure, and open-weight models.

What Nvidia seeks with the purchase of Hugging Face
The acquisition marks a step forward for Nvidia towards the development of generative AI tools and infrastructure services.
The company already offers Nemotron, a family of AI models with open, free, and customizable weights. Additionally, it committed to maintaining the current open standards of Hugging Face.
The strategy aims to strengthen ties with developers seeking advanced and non-proprietary tools. Nvidia also argues that open models can benefit the tech sector compared to closed alternatives.

Earlier this month, Nvidia gathered over 80 companies to sign an open letter addressed to the U.S. Government. The request aimed to defend open-weight AI models.
The company also created SAFE, an initiative to confidentially collect and analyze incidents related to AI. The project seeks to identify recurring failures and publish evidence-based operational recommendations.

“Open models allow startups, companies, universities, and public institutions to leverage advanced capabilities without having to train each model from scratch,” stated Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia.
Why Nvidia bets on open-source software
The strategy may seem striking because CUDA, the software layer used by its GPUs, is proprietary.
However, some large AI labs and hyperscalers are looking to develop their own custom chips. In light of this scenario, Nvidia expanded its software offerings to keep developers within its platforms.













