Nvidia is reportedly close to acquiring Hugging Face for about $12.9 billion, although no agreement has been signed and the talks could still collapse. The deal would give Nvidia greater influence over the open-source AI ecosystem, helping it support demand for its chips as major closed-model companies develop their own processors.

Hugging Face, founded in 2016, is a leading platform for developers to share and use open-source AI models. The acquisition could also provide Nvidia with a route back into cloud computing through Hugging Face’s existing model-hosting services, while reinforcing its public backing for open AI models amid growing US policy and competition concerns.