NVIDIA’s stock advanced 0.6% in pre-market trading on Thursday after the company confirmed a definitive agreement to acquire Hugging Face, a leading open-source AI platform, for up to $14 billion.
The deal, valued at $12.93 billion with an additional $1 billion in employee retention incentives, underscores NVIDIA’s strategy to expand its artificial intelligence ecosystem. Hugging Face serves more than 18 million developers across over 200,000 organizations, hosting millions of AI models and open datasets.
Analysts responded positively to the acquisition. JPMorgan maintained an Overweight rating on NVIDIA with a $320 price target, while New Street Research’s Pierre Ferragu suggested the stock could surpass $400 within 18 months. The endorsement reflects expectations of sustained AI-driven growth, alongside NVIDIA’s efforts to mitigate risks from potential semiconductor tariffs highlighted by U.S. Commerce Secretary Lutnick.
The broader market showed modest gains, with the S&P 500 up 0.3% and the Dow Jones rising 0.6%. Advances were tempered by rising expectations of further Federal Reserve rate hikes and ongoing discussions regarding semiconductor tariffs.
Competitive dynamics in the AI semiconductor sector were also in focus. Broadcom reported fiscal third-quarter 2026 revenue of $29.59 billion, exceeding consensus estimates, driven by a 221% year-over-year surge in AI semiconductor revenue to $16.7 billion.
