Hugging Face

Hugging Face is the main public repository for open-weight AI models, hosting around three million models for roughly 18 million developers. It was founded in France in 2016 and later moved its base to New York, and European policymakers have cited it for years as evidence that open AI infrastructure could be built outside the US hyperscalers. On 3 September 2026 NVIDIA confirmed a $12.93 billion acquisition, expected to close in the first half of 2027 and subject to both a US HSR filing and a full EU merger review. NVIDIA has committed to keeping the platform open and multi-accelerator, which is the commitment antitrust reviewers will be asked to test.

On 12 September, hours after Dario Amodei said Anthropic would admit third-party evaluators, Clement Delangue launched the Open Alignment Initiative and asked to be one of them, with cofounder Thomas Wolf leading the effort. Nine days after the acquisition was confirmed, Reuters reported NVIDIA was in talks to anchor Anthropic's IPO with up to $10bn, leaving the volunteer auditor owned by a prospective major shareholder of the company it offered to audit.