According to the report, the department is inquiring how the deal could change the landscape for Nvidia's competitors. Hugging Face runs an open platform for hosting and testing AI models and also sells AI infrastructure. The concern, Tom's Hardware writes, is that the purchase could give Nvidia control of a key distribution channel for its own products. Nvidia declined to comment.
Nvidia has said it will keep supporting a range of chip and AI providers once the deal closes, and Hugging Face is expected to become part of Nvidia in the first half of 2027. According to Tom's Hardware, this is not the department's first look at the company: it also examined Nvidia's purchase of SchedMD, whose software is used to run supercomputers, as part of a broader three-year investigation into Nvidia's conduct.
The report says officials have also considered whether Nvidia offered larger allocations of AI chips to customers who also bought its networking hardware and Groq chips; Nvidia bought Groq for $20 billion in December 2025. It is not known whether the inquiry will lead to formal action or conditions on the deal, and the Justice Department has not issued a statement.