Why is Nvidia keeping Hugging Face open after buying it?

Jensen Huang said Hugging Face will remain open for the entire AI ecosystem so developers can choose their own models, frameworks, clouds, inference providers and computing platforms. He added that Nvidia compute will not be required to build on or deploy through the platform.

How large is Hugging Face as an AI platform?

Hugging Face has more than 18 million developers, researchers and creators using it. Huang said the platform also has more than 3 million models, 500,000 data sets and 1 million applications, with more than 200,000 companies using it.

What did Nvidia shares do after the Hugging Face deal was announced?

Nvidia's stock rose slightly before the market open. The article does not give a larger market reaction or a closing price.

Nvidia to spend $13 bil. on Hugging Face, leaving it as open source platform

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Summary

Nvidia is buying Hugging Face for $12.93 billion and will keep it as an open platform. Jensen Huang said developers will still be able to choose models, frameworks, clouds and inference providers. Hugging Face will continue supporting open source and open weight models, along with multi-cloud and multi-accelerator development. Nvidia shares rose slightly before the market open.

Key Facts

More than 18 million developers, researchers and creators use Hugging Face, according to Jensen Huang's blog post.
The platform hosts more than 3 million models, 500,000 data sets and 1 million applications.
More than 200,000 companies use Hugging Face.
Nvidia has released more than 500 models on Hugging Face and more than 250 open datasets.
Hugging Face will not require Nvidia compute for building on or deploying through the platform.

By AP

Published Sep 3, 2026 9:49 pm KST
Updated Sep 3, 2026 10:17 pm KST

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks at the G20 Innovation Ministerial summit in Chapel Hill, N.C., Wednesday (local time). Reuters-Yonhap

Nvidia is buying artificial intelligence (AI) software platform Hugging Face for $12.93 billion.

Jensen Huang wrote in a blog post Thursday that more than 18 million developers, researchers and creators use Hugging Face to share more than 3 million models, 500,000 data sets and 1 million applications. There's also more than 200,000 companies that use the platform, he said.

The AI chipmaker will keep Hugging Face as an open platform.

“Hugging Face will remain an open platform for the entire AI ecosystem. Developers will choose the models they want, the frameworks they want, the clouds and inference service providers they want and the computing platforms they want,” Huang wrote. “Nvidia compute will not be required to build on or deploy through Hugging Face.”

Hugging Face will still support open source and open weight models as well as multi-cloud and multi-accelerator development and deployment.

Nvidia has released more than 500 models on Hugging Face and more than 250 open datasets.

Nvidia's stock rose slightly before the market open.

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