Nvidia closes in on Hugging Face acquisition
techcrunch ·
Nvidia has reportedly agreed to acquire Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, according to The Information, though talks could still fall apart and no signed agreement has been confirmed. The deal would give Nvidia a strong position in open-source AI, helping protect its dominance in AI chips as major closed labs build their own hardware. Hugging Face's CEO has aligned with Nvidia's open-source push, citing concerns about Chinese dominance and supporting open models. Owning Hugging Face could also help Nvidia re-enter cloud computing and offload unused computing capacity from its cloud deals. The price is a large jump from Hugging Face's last valuation of $4.5 billion in 2023, and the company previously rejected a $500 million investment from Nvidia. Hugging Face was recently generating about $150 million in annual revenue and nearing profitability, making the near-$13 billion price hard to resist. It would also provide access to Nvidia's financial resources as other AI infrastructure startups get acquired.
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