The US Justice Department is asking how Nvidia's $12.9B Hugging Face purchase would affect AI competition

The US Justice Department is asking how Nvidia's $12.9B purchase of Hugging Face would affect competition in AI, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the matter. The report rests on those sources rather than an official filing, and it describes questions being asked, not a move to block the deal.

According to the account of the Reuters story from The Next Web, officials want to know whether the deal would let Nvidia "capture a fundamental distribution point for AI." They also want to know whether Nvidia could use Hugging Face to hurt rivals. Nvidia agreed to buy the company in September and promised to keep the platform open. It expects the deal to close in the first half of 2027.

The Justice Department declined to comment, citing long-standing policy, but said it "will continue to prioritize advancement of Super Intelligence," which TNW describes as the White House's term for AI. Nvidia declined to comment, and Hugging Face did not respond.

The questions run alongside a years-long DOJ probe into Nvidia's conduct that began under President Joe Biden. It covers the chipmaker's deals, its stakes in other firms and how it sells chips, including whether it pressured buyers. Nvidia also faces an antitrust probe in France. Last month the DOJ was reported to be examining whether Nvidia structured its $20B Groq deal, a technology license plus hiring of top executives, to avoid a merger review.

For developers, Hugging Face is where open models and datasets get shared and downloaded, so who owns it matters. Many teams pull models, tokenizers and datasets from it by default, and a change in ownership or policy would touch everyday workflows. Nvidia has already moved from chips into software and models, and TNW says it is also in talks with Reflection AI, an open model maker it backs, about a takeover or a larger investment.

What next: nothing is decided. Watch for any formal request from the DOJ, for Nvidia's commitments on keeping the platform open and neutral, and for the closing timeline. If your stack depends on Hugging Face, it is a good moment to know which models you rely on and keep local copies of the critical ones.

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