Nvidia has agreed to buy Hugging Face, a US-based AI model-sharing platform, for about US$13 billion, including up to US$1 billion in equity-based retention awards for employees who join Nvidia.

In a filing, Nvidia said it will keep the platform open for developers, model makers, and users to upload and download models and datasets of their choosing.

It will continue to support other silicon vendors.

That commitment may draw scrutiny because Hugging Face is a key distribution point for AI models and tools.

Regulators are focused on whether Nvidia could favor its own graphics processing units after the deal closes.

Hugging Face already offers developer tools that run on graphics processing units without documentation limiting them to Nvidia hardware.

The acquisition also adds to Nvidia’s push beyond chips as it markets enterprise AI software and platforms.

Founded in 2016, Hugging Face was valued at US$4.5 billion three years ago.

🔗 Source: Bloomberg

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