Nvidia to acquire AI startup Hugging Face for a whopping USD 12.9 bn

Nvidia has agreed to acquire AI startup Hugging Face for USD 12.9 billion, as per reports. This deal would be one of Nvidia's biggest, giving it control of the open-source AI platform. Nvidia was a prior investor in the startup.

Nvidia to Acquire AI Startup Hugging Face for $12.9 Billion

Jensen Huang-led Nvidia has agreed to acquire artificial intelligence (AI) startup Hugging Face for USD 12.9 billion, Reuters reported citing The Information. Hugging Face hosts open-source large language models and datasets.

As per the report, the deal would be one of Nvidia's biggest acquisitions and give the chipmaker control of the platform at a time when AI companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI are developing their own chips as alternatives to Nvidia's graphics processing units. "The price tag would also stand in steep contrast to its annualized revenue of $150 million," Reuters said, citing The Information.

Valuation and Investment History

It is worth noting, Nvidia was among a group of investors, including Salesforce and Alphabet's Google, that participated in Hugging Face's USD 235 million funding round in 2023, valuing the AI startup at USD 4.5 billion. Since then, Nvidia has invested billions of dollars across the AI ecosystem, including in AI developers such as OpenAI. In January, "Hugging Face rejected a USD 500 million investment offer from Nvidia last year that would have valued it at USD 7 billion," the report added.

Hugging Face Hit by Security Incident

Also, this comes a month after the AI startup was hit by a security incident when an OpenAI model went rogue and triggered a hack that compromised Hugging Face infrastructure, the report said.

Nvidia's Impressive Q2FY27 Financials

Apart from this, Nvidia reported strong revenue for Q2FY27 registering a 106 per cent YoY jump. The revenue for the latest quarter stood at USD 96.2 billion, up 18 per cent from the previous quarter. Furthermore, GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins both came at 75.0 per cent each. Additionally, GAAP and non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were USD 2.46 and USD 2.22, respectively, according to a company release.

Data Center Revenue Growth

Nvidia's Data Center revenue came at USD 89.0 billion, up 18 per cent from the previous quarter and up 117 per cent from a year ago.

Dividend and Future Outlook

Adding to this, the company announced to pay dividend of USD 0.25 per share on October 1, 2026, to all shareholders of record on September 10, 2026. Nvidia expects its revenue to reach USD 108.0 billion, plus or minus 2 per cent in the next quarter. (ANI)

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