Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face, the GitHub-like hub for open-source AI models, datasets and benchmarks, in a deal reportedly worth about $12.9 billion, according to The Information.

The acquisition hands Nvidia a dominant position in open-source AI just as freely available models close the gap with closed systems from OpenAI and Anthropic. Anyone downloading a model from Hugging Face still has to run it on their own hardware, which overwhelmingly means Nvidia GPUs, so the deal defends Nvidia's core chip business against big customers building their own silicon.

The price is nearly triple the $4.5 billion valuation Hugging Face reached in its 2023 round, which Nvidia, Alphabet and Salesforce backed. Hugging Face had rebuffed a $500 million Nvidia investment last year that would have valued it near $7 billion.

For crypto and AI builders, the move puts the field's main open-model repository under its most powerful hardware vendor, raising fresh questions about neutrality and access as more onchain and agent projects lean on Hugging Face models.

Partner Offers | Get Your Instant BTC Cashback | Your Gateway To Crypto | Arcus Private Whitelist