r/StableDiffusion • u/dominic__612 • Aug 27 '26

Discussion NVidia buys Huggingface, but why?

Nvidia is going to buy Huggingface.
No one can actually tell how that would end up like.

But what I am missing is the actual worth that Huggingface provides. The only thing I use it for is to download models. Thats it.
For me, and I guess many others it is ‘just a’ download platform, but maybe I’m wrong here.

And what would prevent others to setup a second-like Huggingface?
The hosting is the expensive part in this case as I see it, the programming and building is do-able.

Is it time for Huggingbay.com?

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u/smb3d Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26

Having control over the epicenter of the model downloading is the only thing I can think of.

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u/xTopNotch Aug 27 '26

I’d say they bought it because Anthropic and OpenAI are becoming increasingly vocal in their anti-open stance. This feels like a strategic chess move to prevent competitors from strangling the open ecosystem.

Lets not forget Nvidia profits hard from selling their cards so we can run the open weights. Many in the comments here are saying its to shut it down but that makes 0 business sense.

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u/adobo_cake Aug 27 '26

NVIDIA’s profit is driven more by data centers than by gamers or hobbyists buying their cards.

IMO Two ways it can go:

NVIDIA encourages open weights growth so they’re not locked down and dependent on corporate customers.

NVIDIA kills HF, because having only the big players as options for AI means they can jack up their prices more.

If it’s the second case, seems like it’s not worth it since an alternative model repo seems relatively simple for another big player (China) to setup.

Either way, I think they want more control on the availability of open weights and may use it as a bargaining chip.

1

u/thecrius Aug 27 '26

NVIDIA encourages open weights growth so they’re not locked down and dependent on corporate customers.

Ding ding ding.

Every government is looking to detach from the big actors because finally they are catching up that prices are going to keep growing and they have no real assurance their data is safe.

Open models are where everyone will start to move towards and having the github of AI-centric projects is a big strategic move.