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Clement Delangue
Clement Delangue
Cofounder and CEO, Huggingface
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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Hugging Face deal: Open models matter greatly to our company

📅 Sep 03, 2026 CNBC Television 10 MIN 3697 VIEWS 21 SEGMENTS · 3 SPEAKERS
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue join 'Squawk Box' to discuss Nvidia's deal to acquire Hugging Face for for $12.9 billion, how the deal came about, the importance of open models, and more.

What Clement Delangue said

Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.

Clement Delangue, CEO of Hugging Face, discussed the company's acquisition by Nvidia for $12.93 billion. Delangue said he approached Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during the summer, realizing open-source AI needed more resources to scale. He cited OpenAI's agents breaking as a catalyst, highlighting the need for open models to defend against closed-source APIs. Delangue stated Hugging Face's goal is to reach 100 million AI builders in the next few years, up from 18 million currently. He confirmed the three founders and the whole team will join Nvidia, continuing to run an independently neutral platform within Nvidia. Delangue framed a path where proprietary APIs dominate versus one where open-source AI is available to everyone, allowing people to become owners and builders of AI rather than renting it.

Key takeaways

  1. Hugging Face was acquired by Nvidia for $12.93 billion, with Delangue confirming the deal closed after a summer approach to Nvidia.
  2. Delangue aims to grow Hugging Face from 18 million to 100 million AI builders in the next few years.
  3. The three Hugging Face founders and the entire team will join Nvidia, running Hugging Face as an independently neutral platform.
  4. OpenAI's agents breaking between May and July was a catalyst that showed the importance of open models for defense.
  5. Delangue sees a path where open-source AI is available to everyone, versus outsourcing to proprietary APIs.

Numbers and commitments

FigureWhat it refers toTypeAt
200,000 enterprise customers Hugging Face enterprise customer count metric 5:45
18 million developers Hugging Face developer count metric 5:45
3 million models Models available on Hugging Face metric 5:45
100 million AI builders Target for Hugging Face users in next few years commitment 9:14
10 years Hugging Face's time working on open models timeline 6:41
$4.5 billion Hugging Face valuation in 2023 metric 5:21

Chapters

  1. 0:00Deal origins and summer catalysts
  2. 1:32Why open source matters
  3. 3:01Nvidia's support for both models
  4. 5:21Price tag and competitive bidding
  5. 9:08Hugging Face team joining Nvidia

Questions asked in this interview

2
  1. 1:13Was that the catalyst, or were there other things happening that made you think we really need deeper pockets?
  2. 9:08Clem, what are your other interests, and are you going to stay with Hugging Face?
Interviewer 0:00 ↗
Nvidia is officially acquiring Hugging Face for $12.93 billion. Joining us to talk about this deal right now is Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang and Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue. Gentlemen, welcome to both of you. It's good to see you. And Jensen, I like your sign. It's the Hugging Face. All right, gentlemen.
Clement Delangue 0:21 ↗
I have one in the background, too.
Interviewer 0:23 ↗
Yes, I see the one right behind you. This deal has been rumored. There have been people speculating about this for well over a week at this point. What happened? How did you two get together?
Jensen Huang 0:37 ↗
Well, we—
Interviewer 0:40 ↗
Well, go ahead, Jensen.
Jensen Huang 0:42 ↗
No, Clem, I'm going to let you go first.
Clement Delangue 0:45 ↗
Yeah. During the summer, I think we realized that Hugging Face and open-source AI in general was at a turning point and that it needed more resources, more scale, more visibility. So we went to see Jensen, and we told him we want to make open-source AI big. And he told us, "Let's do it." So that's really how it started. And a few weeks later, here we are.
Interviewer 1:13 ↗
Clem, what happened over the summer? Because when you say something happened over the summer, the first thing that pops to my mind was OpenAI's agents kind of breaking in between May and July. You catching them, finding that was there. Was that the catalyst, or were there other things happening that made you think we really need deeper pockets?

9 more exchanges in this transcript

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Cite this transcript

APA, MLA, BibTeX
APA

Delangue, C. (2026, September 3). Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Hugging Face deal: Open models matter greatly to our company [Interview transcript]. CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1299999/

MLA

Clement Delangue. "Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Hugging Face deal: Open models matter greatly to our company." CNBC Television, 3 Sep. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1299999/.

BibTeX 
@misc{delangue2026_1299999,
  author       = {Clement Delangue},
  title        = {Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Hugging Face deal: Open models matter greatly to our company},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {sep},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/1299999/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}