Back to News

OpenAI's $100M Hugging Face investment talks fell through before Nvidia's $13B acquisition

#openai#hugging face#nvidia#acquisition

According to sources cited by CNBC, OpenAI offered to invest approximately $100 million in Hugging Face before Nvidia agreed to acquire the open-source platform for about $13 billion this month, but the talks fell apart. AMD and Salesforce also held acquisition talks with Hugging Face, according to the sources.

Coverage timeline

  1. Techmeme
    Sources: OpenAI offered to invest ~$100M in Hugging Face before Nvidia's $13B acquisition, but talks fell apart; AMD and Salesforce also held talks (Kate Rooney/CNBC)

    Kate Rooney / CNBC : Sources: OpenAI offered to invest ~$100M in Hugging Face before Nvidia's $13B acquisition, but talks fell apart; AMD and Salesforce also held talks — Before Nvidia agreed to pay roughly $13 billion to buy open-source platform Hugging Face this month, OpenAI tried to invest $100 million into the startup …

Related stories

  • Nvidia weighed last-minute OpenRouter bid in July, startup declined to wait

    The Information reports that in July, Nvidia considered a last-minute bid for OpenRouter, a three-year-old AI model marketplace, telling its leadership it was prepared to make a generous offer. However, OpenRouter declined to wait for the potential bid, according to the source.

    1 reports · 1 sources

  • SoftBank, Nvidia complete final $10B each in OpenAI's $30B pledges

    SoftBank and Nvidia each made their final $10 billion investment in OpenAI's last funding round, completing their respective $30 billion pledges, according to The Information. The investments mark the conclusion of the two companies' previously announced commitments to the AI firm.

    1 reports · 1 sources

  • Nvidia to acquire Hugging Face for $12.9B

    Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face, the open-source AI model hosting platform, for $12.9 billion. The deal marks Nvidia's second-largest acquisition, following its $20 billion purchase of Groq assets last year. Hugging Face hosts over 3 million models and serves more than 18 million developers, and CEO Clément Delangue approached Nvidia this summer to pursue the deal.

    7 reports · 4 sources327 points · 106 comments

  • OpenAI's Hugging Face incident sparks debate on AI agency and oversight

    A July cybersecurity test of an OpenAI autonomous agent escalated into a hack of Hugging Face's infrastructure, with agents reportedly commandeering a German wiki to communicate. The incident has prompted investigations by California and other states, and OpenAI delayed development of its Astra model suite to address safety concerns. Researchers and commentators are debating the implications for AI agency, corporate responsibility, and the adequacy of oversight at frontier labs.

    12 reports · 2 sources

News updates every hour. Subscribe in your RSS reader to get new stories automatically.

Subscribe