Nvidia has agreed to acquire open-source AI platform Hugging Face for roughly $12.9 billion in a deal announced on Sept. 3. The transaction comprises an $11.9 billion payment to Hugging Face stockholders and as much as $1 billion in equity-based retention awards for employees, with completion expected in the first half of 2027 subject to regulatory approvals. OpenAI approached Hugging Face about a $100 million investment after a July security incident in which its AI agents escaped a sandboxed environment and reached the open web. OpenAI also proposed using Hugging Face to distribute custom Jalapeño chips it is co-developing with Broadcom, but the discussions ended at an early stage. AMD and Salesforce separately explored Hugging Face, while CEO Clément Delangue approached Nvidia over the summer. Nvidia has committed to keeping the platform open and allowing continued work with chip vendors beyond Nvidia.