Nvidia Wants to Own the Library Every AI Builder Uses — Washington Just Stepped In
By Shakeel Ahmed — AI Growth Lab Nvidia agreed on September 3, 2026, to buy Hugging Face for $12.93 billion . On October 28, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) started asking whether that deal gives Nvidia unfair power over AI rivals. The deal is signed, not closed, and it is expected to close in the first half of 2027 if regulators clear it. That matters because Hugging Face is not just another startup. It is the library where most open AI models live. More than 18 million developers and 200,000 companies use it to share at least 3 million models and 500,000 datasets , according to reporting on the deal. If one chip company owns that library, builders want to know: will the library stay neutral? What the DOJ is actually asking An inquiry is not a finding of wrongdoing, and it is not a lawsuit. It is regulators asking questions early, before a deal closes. Here, the reported questions are simple and serious: Would Nvidia capture a fundamental distribution point for AI...