The US Department of Justice is reportedly probing Nvidia's near $13 billion acquisition of Hugging Face over concerns it could hurt competition in AI.

The United States Department of Justice is reportedly asking questions about whether Nvidia's purchase of Hugging Face will affect competition in the rapidly growing AI sector. Nvidia agreed to buy Hugging Face in September for almost $13 billion. Hugging Face operates an open-source platform for hosting and testing new AI models, and that appears to be the source of the DOJ's concerns. Reuters reports that the department has inquired about how the Hugging Face deal could change the landscape for Nvidia's competitors. The move could be seen as a way for Nvidia to lock in a key distribution channel for its own products. Hugging Face also sells AI infrastructure. Nvidia has declined to comment.

This is not the first time Nvidia has found itself in the DOJ's crosshairs. As Nvidia becomes more vital to the technology industry as a whole and to AI in particular, the company has faced increasing scrutiny from the U.S. government, dating back to the Biden administration. The situation did not ease under the Trump administration, with the president reportedly tempted to break the company up, despite being unfamiliar with what it does. More recently, Nvidia and other AI hardware makers have come under export controls. Nvidia's powerful AI-focused hardware can only be sold to approved entities and cannot be shipped to countries including China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

At home, the DOJ has also looked into Nvidia's purchase of SchedMD, a company whose software is used to run supercomputers with ties to national security. Nvidia promised to continue supporting the software as part of a broader three-year investigation into its conduct. Officials have also considered whether Nvidia offered larger allocations of its AI chips to customers who also purchased its networking hardware and Groq chips. Nvidia bought Groq for $20 billion in December 2025. That deal included the acquihire of key members of the AI chip startup's team, including its CEO.

As for Hugging Face, Nvidia has similarly confirmed that it will continue to support a range of chip and AI providers once the acquisition completes. Hugging Face is expected to officially become part of Nvidia in the first half of 2027.