Commercial platform hosting open models and datasets, with an active public-policy and ethics team.
Hugging Face is the main hub where open AI models are shared, and it lobbies for open-source-friendly rules. Its energy-rating project exposes that closed-model companies won't disclose their power use.
Focus
- Open source
- Transparency
- Environmental accountability
Funding, as far as we know
Venture capital ($235M Series D, 2023, $4.5B valuation: Salesforce, Google, Amazon, Nvidia, others) - https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/24/hugging-face-raises-235m-from-investors-including-salesforce-and-nvidia
What they've actually done
Launched the AI Energy Score rating 166 open models; closed-model providers have not submitted energy data
2025-02 / 2025-04-14
Published open-source developer guidance on EU AI Act compliance and filed policy submissions in the US and EU
2024-2025
Publishes a recurring 'State of Open Source on Hugging Face' report
2026-spring