Nvidia buys Hugging Face for $13 billion despite OpenAI hacking

Nvidia announced plans Thursday to acquire artificial intelligence company Hugging Face for roughly $13 billion, as the chip company looks to spread “open” AI models globally.

While major industry players such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude operate on “closed” AI systems, Nvidia is seeking to expand the market for open models that users can freely download on their own servers and customize, among other features. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s deal to acquire Hugging Face marks a major development in his effort to expand the open model system, as the acquired company serves as a repository for millions of models and data sets.