TNB Tech Minute: Nvidia Strikes $13 Billion Deal to Buy Hugging Face

0:00Here's your morning, TNB Tech Minute for Thursday, September 3rd. I'm Danny Lewis for the Wall Street Journal. In its latest big ticket deal, Nvidia has agreed to buy AI development platform Hugging Face for about $13 billion. The chipmaker says it wants to accelerate the spread of open-weight customizable AI models, as opposed to the proprietary models developed by companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. In recent years, Hugging Face has become a platform for engineers to collaborate on machine learning projects, such as developing AI models and applications. The deal comes as Nvidia ramps up efforts to develop open-weight AI models and related services that could help counter the ascent of open models developed in China. But as AI spending increases, a new report suggests that many corporate leaders don't know what they're getting out of it. A Gartner survey of about 1,300 leaders of companies that made at least $50 million in revenue during the 2025 fiscal year found that almost a quarter of them don't know the rate of return on their AI investments, and those who pursue it most heavily often

1:04aren't generating the highest returns. Still, about 85% of respondents planned to increase their AI spending in 2026, and a separate Gartner survey found about 80% of board directors say AI is among the top five investments expected to drive shareholder value. And Ford is setting a lofty goal for its new electric truck, sell 100,000 of them in the US during its first year of production. People familiar with the matter say the upcoming Ford Fathom will go on sale next year with a starting price tag of about $30,000. But it's ambitious. Tesla is the only company to sell that many units of a single EV model in the US in a year. Ford spokesman declined to comment on volume projections for the truck. And that's your TNB tech minute. We'll be back this afternoon with more.