The US Justice Department is asking how Nvidia's $12.93 billion purchase of Hugging Face, the open-source platform where developers find, test and deploy AI models and datasets, would affect competition in AI, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The questions, reported Wednesday, fold the pending deal into a multi-year DOJ examination of Nvidia's conduct.
For Hugging Face, officials have asked whether the acquisition would give Nvidia a "fundamental distribution point for AI." They have also asked how Nvidia could use the platform to harm rivals in the AI market, whether it could gain leverage through the acquired business, and about Hugging Face's competitors.
The broader questions cover Nvidia's acquisitions, investments and sales practices, and whether the company has pressured customers. A government inquiry is not evidence of wrongdoing, and this one may not lead to any DOJ action.
Key facts
- 01The DOJ is asking how Nvidia's $12.93 billion Hugging Face acquisition would affect AI competition.
- 02Officials asked whether the deal would give Nvidia a "fundamental distribution point for AI."
- 03Nvidia expects the Hugging Face deal to close in the first half of 2027.
- 04The DOJ has also examined Nvidia's SchedMD and Run:ai acquisitions and its 2025 Groq licensing deal.
- 05The broader Nvidia probe began under President Biden and has continued under President Trump.
Nvidia expects the Hugging Face deal to close in the first half of 2027. The company has said Hugging Face will keep working with a range of chip, cloud and AI providers, and CEO Jensen Huang has said developers won't need Nvidia hardware to build on or deploy through the platform.
At $12.93 billion, Hugging Face would be Nvidia's largest conventional acquisition, ahead of its roughly $6.9 billion purchase of networking company Mellanox, which closed in 2020.
Nvidia holds the largest share of the AI chip market and backs major AI developers including Anthropic and OpenAI. Competitors are pressing on several fronts: Broadcom and Google are co-designing processors built for specific tasks and AI software, and AMD has signed billion-dollar deals with several AI labs and cloud operators.
The Hugging Face questions sit alongside DOJ scrutiny of earlier Nvidia deals. Officials examined Nvidia's December 2025 acquisition of SchedMD, whose open-source software helps run supercomputers important to national security. That purchase raised concerns among AI specialists about continued access, and Nvidia has pledged to keep the software openly accessible and supported. The DOJ has also looked at Nvidia's purchase of Run:ai, whose software helps AI chips run more efficiently.
The department has also reviewed Nvidia's 2025 agreement to license technology from chip startup Groq and hire its engineers. Officials have explored whether Nvidia offered larger chip allocations to customers who bought its networking equipment and Groq processors, which goes to whether Nvidia used its dominant product to move into a newer market. Nvidia declined to comment, and Groq did not respond.
The broad Nvidia investigation began under President Joe Biden and has continued under President Donald Trump, a stretch in which Nvidia became the world's most valuable company. There is no indication Trump is involved. Staff-led DOJ investigations often run for years and span administrations, and the department routinely asks companies for input when it reviews proposed mergers.
A DOJ spokesperson declined to discuss pending matters, citing longstanding policy, and said the department under Trump would continue to prioritize "advancement of Super Intelligence" for Americans. The spokesperson added that it would be inappropriate to run a merger investigation "under the guise of a conduct investigation." Nvidia declined to comment, and Hugging Face did not respond to a request for comment.
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