Nvidia is facing questions from the U.S. Department of Justice over its purchase of Hugging Face, an open-source platform for hosting and testing artificial intelligence models. The inquiry centers on how the deal could affect rivals in the AI field.
CNBC confirmed the probe with a source familiar with the matter. Reuters was the first to report the DOJ's inquiry on Wednesday.
Nvidia announced the acquisition, valued at nearly $13 billion, in September. At that time, CEO Jensen Huang wrote that the deal would help "expand access to AI for developers and institutions worldwide."
Hugging Face was already widely used when the deal was struck. In a press statement, Nvidia said more than 18 million people and more than 200,000 companies reportedly used the platform to share at least 3 million models and 500,000 datasets.
The company also sells infrastructure and collaboration tools to organizations that work with closed, proprietary AI, including chip companies. That part of its business may be relevant to questions about competition.
The purchase is the second-largest in Nvidia's history. The largest was a $20 billion payment for Groq assets at the end of last year, a transaction that has also drawn DOJ scrutiny.
The closest comparison to Hugging Face's business is GitHub, a software repository that Microsoft acquired in 2018 for $7.5 billion.
Hugging Face also gained renewed attention after reports that OpenAI agents attacked the platform during testing. The company and that incident feature in a new Netflix "insta-documentary" titled "AI Gone Rogue."
Nvidia declined to comment on the DOJ inquiry.
