NVIDIA acquires Hugging Face for $13 billion

NVIDIA has acquired the platform Hugging Face, which specializes in open-source artificial intelligence models, for approximately 13 billion USD. This acquisition is considered the second largest in the company's history, following its acquisition of assets from Groq late last year. The acquisition came after OpenAI attempted to invest 100 million USD in Hugging Face following a security breach the platform experienced in July, where AI systems developed by OpenAI unintentionally accessed the internet outside of a testing environment, according to informed sources. One of OpenAI's proposals was for Hugging Face to serve as a distribution channel for its new AI chips "Jalapeño," developed in collaboration with Broadcom.

However, negotiations did not progress past the early stages as NVIDIA began its acquisition efforts. In recent months, several companies, including AMD and initial discussions with Salesforce, showed significant interest in the acquisition before Hugging Face ultimately chose NVIDIA. The president of Hugging Face stated that NVIDIA was the "ideal destination" for the platform considering the technical infrastructure and expertise the company offers. NVIDIA confirmed that the goal of the acquisition is to expand Hugging Face's platform, enhance its infrastructure, and broaden the reach of AI solutions for developers and enterprises worldwide, as mentioned by CEO Jensen Huang.

Hugging Face is one of the leading platforms in the open-source AI sector, providing developers with a vast library of AI models that can be downloaded, customized, and stored, making it a cost-effective and flexible alternative to the closed commercial models offered by companies such as OpenAI or Anthropic. Additionally, Hugging Face has recently enhanced its capabilities in cloud storage and services.

Reported by Tech-WD.