Nvidia has agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, The Information reported Wednesday. Business Insider says the talks haven't reached a signed deal yet and could still fall apart.
Hugging Face is the GitHub of AI. It hosts 3 million open-source models and 1 million datasets. If your team ever pulled an open model, it probably came from here. The platform has 13 million users. More than 30% of the Fortune 500 use it.
The numbers
Hugging Face makes about $150 million a year in revenue. Nvidia is paying 86 times that. Last year, Hugging Face turned down a $500 million investment from Nvidia at a $7 billion valuation. The company said it didn't want one dominant investor swaying decisions. A full buyout is different.
What changes
Hugging Face's appeal was neutrality. It hosted models from everyone and supported all hardware providers. Google, Amazon, Microsoft — all Nvidia rivals — have their own chips. Under Nvidia ownership, that neutrality ends. The company selling you the chips now owns the place where the models live.
Nvidia already spent $40 billion on AI equity deals this year, including $30 billion into OpenAI. Critics call it circular financing: Nvidia backs companies that buy Nvidia chips with Nvidia's money. Owning Hugging Face outright is different. It's infrastructure, not just a customer.