The US Department of Justice is investigating Nvidia’s $12.93 billion acquisition of Hugging Face because of its potential impact on competition in the artificial intelligence sector. The inquiry is part of a broader examination of Nvidia’s business practices that already includes the chipmaker’s licensing agreement with AI chip startup Groq. The deal provides $11.9 billion for Hugging Face shareholders and up to $1 billion for employee equity retention. As of October 28, 2026, regulators had not publicly detailed a formal challenge or second request, while Nvidia expects the transaction to close in the first half of 2027 pending regulatory approvals. Hugging Face hosts three million open-source AI models and 500,000 datasets used by more than 18 million developers and 200,000 companies, giving Nvidia greater influence over the software and distribution layers of the AI market.
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