The Role of Silicon Valley's Central Banker

The acquisition of Hugging Face is an indication of Nvidia’s growing role as Silicon Valley’s central banker and its emphasis on open-source technology.

Nvidia said on Thursday that it is buying Hugging Face, a library of open artificial intelligence models, for $12.9 billion, as the chipmaker extends a spending spree in the escalating global race to dominate the technology.

The deal marries Nvidia’s chip and data center infrastructure with Hugging Face’s millions of open-source A.I. models that can be freely downloaded and modified. And it puts Nvidia’s deep pockets firmly on one side of a debate over how A.I. systems should be built.

“Together, we will make A.I. more open, more capable and more accessible to people and institutions around the world,” wrote Jensen Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, in a blog post.

The acquisition is also another sign of Nvidia’s growing role as Silicon Valley’s central banker, using its vast financial resources to bolster A.I. start-ups and funnel money to customers for its chips. With $197 billion in current assets and nearly $60 billion in profits from its most recent quarter, the Silicon Valley giant has been spending heavily on A.I.

- Author: Kalley Huang, Lauren Hirsch and Kate Conger, The New York Times

Read more...