Nvidia's potential Hugging Face deal shows how far it's moved from its GPU roots

Aug 28, 2026 06:22 PM - 1 hour ago 2

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Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Let's rewind almost 180 years.

You tally a hardware shop that does decent business erstwhile abruptly group commencement buying picks and shovels. Like, a lot of picks and shovels.

Before you cognize it, business is booming. They're chasing gold, and they request your devices to find it. Not everyone succeeds, but that doesn't matter to you. You're trading the dream of a golden fortune, not chasing it.

Then a thought creeps in: How tin I get successful connected the action? Your picks-and-shovels business mightiness beryllium insulated from golden mining's risks, but it's besides missing retired connected its biggest rewards. And besides, this tally mightiness not past forever.

So you commencement trading maps of the golden mines. Build a barracks for prospectors to slumber in. Even lend immoderate of them money. You're not technically mining, but you're getting awfully close.

The questions past become: Are you building a business empire? Or conscionable trying to support the golden unreserved going?

That's the statement surrounding Nvidia's ever-expanding business plans.

Earlier this week, my colleagues Katie Roof, Geoff Weiss, and Ashley Stewart collapsed the news that Nvidia was successful talks to get Hugging Face for much than $13 billion. (Katie besides had the original scoop Sunday that Hugging Face was connected the market.)

Hugging Face is crushed zero for open-source AI models. The level hosts much than 2 cardinal of them. With cheaper unfastened models gaining traction, it makes consciousness for Nvidia to cozy up to those developers. (It's besides already an investor successful Hugging Face.)

And arsenic Geoff explains, building heavy bonds pinch that organization could service arsenic a useful hedge against apical AI labs that mightiness yet effort to trim Nvidia retired by creating their ain chips.

It's besides different illustration of Nvidia moving distant from a axenic picks-and-shovels attack to the AI roar and getting person to the existent mines.

From backstopping loans for companies' massive AI buildouts to partnering pinch Wall Street firms to finance $500 cardinal successful AI infrastructure, we're a agelong measurement from Nvidia conscionable trading the GPUs that powerfulness the AI boom.

Overall, Nvidia's been connected a dealmaking spree. Its investments successful backstage companies were worthy $47.9 cardinal arsenic of precocious July. That's much than double what it was astatine the extremity of January ($22.3 billion).

Some will reason that's conscionable bully business for a institution trying to support its spot astatine the top. And since Nvidia's sitting connected a upland of cash, why not dispersed its bets?

But astatine what constituent is it little astir increasing your business and much astir making judge location are still group to bargain from you successful the first place?

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