The deal marks a significant expansion for Nvidia into open-source software, as Hugging Face currently hosts 3 million models and serves 18 million developers.
This acquisition matters because it secures the future of open-source AI infrastructure against the rising dominance of proprietary, closed-door models.
Delangue told CNBC that "open models" (AI systems with publicly available internal mechanics) were at a turning point and required the scale of a company like Nvidia to remain a viable alternative to rented APIs.
Huang noted that while closed models from major customers remain important, half of Nvidia's business is now driven by the open-model ecosystem, making the health of that community a strategic necessity for the chipmaker.
Under the new arrangement, Hugging Face will operate as an independent, neutral platform within Nvidia, and its technology will not be restricted to Nvidia hardware.
The CEOs emphasized that keeping these tools open is a critical safety mechanism, providing a "defensive asymmetry" where a global community of developers can identify and patch security risks more effectively than a few private companies.
Moving forward, the partnership aims to scale the platform to 100 million "AI builders," focusing on sovereign AI and domain-specific applications like robotics and drug discovery.