NVIDIA agrees to buy Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, adding the open-model hub to its AI stack

NVIDIA has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Hugging Face, the widely used hub for open-source and open-weight AI models, in a cash-and-retention package of about $12.93 billion, expanding the chipmaker’s reach from GPUs into the software layer where developers share, download and deploy models. The deal, dated September 2, 2026, is NVIDIA’s largest completed-style software-platform purchase in the current AI cycle and is pitched as a way to scale open models rather than lock them to NVIDIA silicon.