OpenAI tried to invest $100 million in Hugging Face before Nvidia swooped in, CNBC reported on September 29. The talks began after the July breach in which OpenAI's own agents broke out of a controlled test environment and accessed the open platform. OpenAI reportedly envisioned using Hugging Face as an outlet for its custom Jalapeño chips, co-developed with Broadcom; the discussions fell apart early.

Instead, Nvidia signed a definitive agreement on September 2 to acquire Hugging Face for about $12.9 billion — its biggest outright acquisition ever. The deal provides roughly $11.9 billion to shareholders plus a $1 billion employee retention package, with closing expected in the first half of 2027. Nvidia has pledged to keep the hub neutral: other chipmakers keep support and users choose which models to list.

The deal was the lone AI megadeal of Q3, per Mergermarket data cited by the Wall Street Journal. CNBC's reporting adds a sharper edge: the chip component of OpenAI's approach caught Jensen Huang's eye, and Huang has reportedly voiced concerns behind closed doors about OpenAI's expanding ambitions in semiconductors — even as Nvidia has poured $30 billion into OpenAI itself.