Aug 26 (Reuters) - Nvidia has agreed to buy Hugging Face, a repository of open-source AI models, for $12.9 billion, The Information reported on Wednesday, citing a person with knowledge of the deal.
A deal of that size would mark one of Nvidia's largest acquisitions to date and underscore how the Jensen Huang-led company at the center of the AI boom is betting that demand for the technology is expanding rather than peaking.
It would also give Nvidia control of Hugging Face - which hosts open-source
large language models and datasets - at a time when builders of closed-source models such as Anthropic and OpenAI are seeking to create their own chips as an alternative to Nvidia's graphics processing units.
The price tag would also stand in steep contrast to its annualized revenue of $150 million reported by The Information earlier this week.
The chipmaker and New York-based Hugging Face did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment outside regular business hours.
Nvidia was among companies such as Salesforce and Alphabet's Google that backed Hugging Face in a $235 million funding round in 2023, valuing the company at $4.5 billion. Nvidia has also invested billions of dollars across the AI ecosystem since then, backing AI developers such as OpenAI.
In January, the Financial Times reported that Hugging Face rejected a $500 million investment offer from Nvidia last year that would have valued it at $7 billion.
Nvidia's bet on strong AI demand was highlighted on Wednesday when it forecast a 70% jump in revenue next fiscal year. It also said it has $18 billion committed to equity investments through fiscal year 2027.
The report also comes a month after Hugging Face was hit by a security incident when an OpenAI model went rogue and triggered a hack that compromised Hugging Face infrastructure.
(Reporting by Carlos Méndez in Mexico City; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Subhranshu Sahu)
