U.S. Department of Justice is investigating NVIDIA's acquisition of Hugging Face.

According to Reuters, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched an investigation into Nvidia’s acquisition of open-source AI model platform Hugging Face, focusing on its impact on AI competition and Nvidia’s business practices. Citing two people familiar with the matter, Reuters reported that DOJ officials have questioned whether the roughly $129 billion deal would give Nvidia control over a critical distribution hub in the AI sector, and whether Nvidia could use Hugging Face to harm competitors or leverage it as a bargaining chip. Officials also raised questions about Hugging Face’s rivals. The sources said the DOJ’s recent broad investigation covers Nvidia’s acquisitions and investments, sales practices, and whether the company pressures customers. The probe began under the Biden administration and has continued into the Trump administration; Reuters noted there is no indication that Trump is involved. Separately, the DOJ is also examining whether, after obtaining technology licenses from chip startup Groq and hiring its core engineers, Nvidia allocated more AI chips to customers that purchased both networking equipment and Groq processors. The SchedMD acquisition announced in December 2025 and the Run:ai acquisition have also come under scrutiny. Reuters emphasized that an investigation does not constitute evidence of wrongdoing and does not necessarily lead to litigation. When Nvidia announced its Hugging Face acquisition last month, it stated that the platform would continue to support partnerships with all types of semiconductor, cloud, and AI vendors, and remain open to the entire AI ecosystem. The deal is expected to close in the first half of next year.