{"slug": "us-antitrust-regulators-are-scrutinizing-nvidia-s-hugging-face-deal-and-sales", "title": "US antitrust regulators are scrutinizing Nvidia's Hugging Face deal and sales practices", "summary": "The US Justice Department is inquiring whether Nvidia's planned $12.93 billion acquisition of open-source AI platform Hugging Face could give Nvidia control over a key AI distribution hub and harm competitors, according to two sources cited by Reuters. Nvidia expects the deal to close in the first half of 2027 and says Hugging Face will keep supporting partnerships with a range of chip, cloud, and AI providers. The probe, which began under Joe Biden and has continued under Donald Trump, also covers Nvidia's acquisitions of SchedMD and Run:ai, its licensing deal with Groq, and whether Nvidia tied extra AI chip allocations to customers buying its networking gear and Groq processors; France's competition authority is separately investigating Nvidia over CUDA dependence and its stakes in cloud providers such as CoreWeave.", "body_md": "# US antitrust regulators are scrutinizing Nvidia's Hugging Face deal and sales practices\n\n**The US Justice Department is looking into Nvidia's planned acquisition of open-source platform Hugging Face.** According to two sources cited by [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/us-doj-is-inquiring-about-nvidias-purchase-hugging-face-sources-say-2026-10-28/), department officials are asking whether the purchase could give Nvidia control over a key hub for distributing AI and hurt its competitors. The [deal](https://the-decoder.com/nvidia-buys-the-front-door-to-open-ai-as-closed-labs-increasingly-design-their-own-silicon/) is worth $12.93 billion, and Nvidia expects it to close in the first half of 2027. The company says Hugging Face will keep supporting partnerships with a range of chip, cloud, and AI providers.\n\nAt the same time, US antitrust regulators are investigating Nvidia's acquisitions, investments, sales practices, and possible pressure on customers. The probe started under Joe Biden and has continued under Donald Trump. According to the sources, officials have also looked at Nvidia's acquisitions of [SchedMD](https://the-decoder.com/nvidia-strengthens-open-source-strategy-with-schedmd-acquisition/) and [Run:ai](https://the-decoder.com/nvidia-snaps-up-israeli-ai-infrastructure-company-runai/), along with its licensing deal with [Groq](https://the-decoder.com/nvidias-20-billion-groq-deal-sure-looks-like-an-acquisition-as-90-percent-of-staff-moves-over/). They're also checking whether Nvidia offered customers more AI chips if they bought Nvidia networking gear and Groq processors too.\n\nNvidia faces scrutiny in Europe as well. [France's competition authority](https://the-decoder.com/nvidia-faces-potential-antitrust-charges-in-france-over-alleged-anti-competitive-practices/) is investigating the company over alleged anticompetitive business practices. The regulator is concerned about the industry's dependence on Nvidia's CUDA programming software and about Nvidia's stakes in cloud providers like [CoreWeave](https://the-decoder.com/nvidia-pours-2-billion-into-coreweave/). It pointed to possible risks such as supply restrictions, unfair contract terms, and discrimination against certain customers.\n\n```\nAI News Without the Hype – Curated by Humans\n\n\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to THE DECODER for ad-free reading, a weekly AI newsletter, our exclusive \"AI Radar\" frontier report six times a year, full archive access, and access to our comment section.\t\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe now\n```\n\n[Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/us-doj-is-inquiring-about-nvidias-purchase-hugging-face-sources-say-2026-10-28/)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/us-antitrust-regulators-are-scrutinizing-nvidia-s-hugging-face-deal-and-sales", "canonical_source": "https://the-decoder.com/us-antitrust-regulators-are-scrutinizing-nvidias-hugging-face-deal-and-sales-practices/", "published_at": "2026-10-29 14:07:49+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-29 14:17:36.860533+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-policy", "ai-chips", "ai-infrastructure", "ai-startups"], "entities": ["Nvidia", "Hugging Face", "US Justice Department", "Reuters", "SchedMD", "Run:ai", "Groq", "CoreWeave"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/us-antitrust-regulators-are-scrutinizing-nvidia-s-hugging-face-deal-and-sales", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/us-antitrust-regulators-are-scrutinizing-nvidia-s-hugging-face-deal-and-sales.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/us-antitrust-regulators-are-scrutinizing-nvidia-s-hugging-face-deal-and-sales.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/us-antitrust-regulators-are-scrutinizing-nvidia-s-hugging-face-deal-and-sales.jsonld"}}