What to know about Hugging Face, the open-source AI startup reportedly catching Nvidia’s eye
New reports outline deal talks between the two companies as open-source AI technology comes more into focus.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is in discussions to acquire AI platform Hugging Face for over $13 billion, though a deal has not been finalized. Sources say the companies have serious talks ongoing. Hugging Face, known for hosting open-source models and datasets, met with Microsoft but no deal materialized. Nvidia has been aggressively making deals with its substantial cash reserves.
The company has committed $18 billion to equity investments this fiscal year, in addition to $47.9 billion already invested in private companies. Nvidia previously participated in Hugging Face's $235 million funding round in 2023, which valued the platform at $4.5 billion. Hugging Face declined a $500 million investment offer from Nvidia last year, valuing it at $7 billion at the time.
Owning Hugging Face could expand Nvidia's influence among developers and potentially shift more workloads to its chips. However, Nvidia's ownership might complicate Hugging Face's neutrality, as the platform supports models and hardware from various competitors including AMD and Intel.
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