Nvidia announced a $12.9 billion acquisition of Hugging Face on Thursday, extending its spending spree in the global AI race. Jensen Huang, Nvidia's chief executive, stated the deal will make AI more open, capable, and accessible worldwide. The acquisition solidifies Nvidia's role as Silicon Valley's central banker, leveraging its nearly $60 billion in quarterly profits to bolster AI start-ups.

Last month, Nvidia raised $500 billion in financing for customers' computing power needs. The company has invested nearly $50 billion in AI labs making advanced models, according to Colette Kress, Nvidia's chief financial officer. Recent months have seen Nvidia champion open-source technology as an affordable alternative to closed systems like Anthropic, though critics warn of security risks.

Both companies backed an industry letter advocating for open AI models after Anthropic and Open AI lobbied against them. Nvidia committed to promoting both closed and open-source AI models while lobbying against restrictive legislation. The acquisition gives Nvidia deeper insight into how developers use AI models.