In 2023, the company was valued at US$4.5 billion in a funding round
AI STARTUP Hugging Face has been exploring a sale that could value the company at US$13 billion or more, Business Insider reported on Sunday (Aug 23), citing people familiar with the matter.
The New York-based company, which hosts open-source large language models and datasets, has been working with a bank to gauge bidders’ interest, the report said.
Hugging Face did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment outside regular business hours.
Hugging Face was valued at US$4.5 billion in 2023 in a funding round led by technology heavyweights including Salesforce, Alphabet’s Google and Nvidia.
Hugging Face was hit by a security incident last month when an OpenAI model went rogue and triggered a hack that compromised Hugging Face infrastructure.
OpenAI was testing the capabilities of some of its most advanced models in a controlled environment when an agent escaped containment, reached the internet and broke into Hugging Face to fulfill its testing goal.
The incident was widely seen as a sign of AI’s expanding capabilities fuelling long-feared security threats. REUTERS
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