Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue is changing the game by making AI models and datasets open-source, rather than keeping them under lock and key like most big tech companies do with their proprietary technology. He’s working to level the playing field so that every developer and startup has free access to artificial intelligence models, democratizing the development of the most influential technology of our era.
Instead of guarding its proprietary technology and models, Hugging Face is sharing more than 300,000 models and 50,000 datasets, along with 100,000 applications, making it widely available to upwards of 50,000 organizations. Delangue believes that transparency and openness are key, advocating for more AI makers and companies to share their models and datasets publicly, and in open-source, to empower everyone to understand and build AI themselves.
Founded in 2016, Hugging Face initially envisioned the company as a chatbot for teenagers before shifting gears to become an open-source provider of Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies, and ultimately open-sourcing large language models. Delangue has emphasized the value of the open-source model, empowering the community and generating significantly more value than building a proprietary tool.
Advocating for more openness and transparency, Hugging Face has become an open platform widely used by AI builders. Delangue has taken this message beyond the realm of developers, testifying about AI on legislative floors and underscoring the domination of the AI field by a few wealthy companies who limit access to novel AI systems.
Despite the criticism, Hugging Face has attracted investments from tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, Nvidia, and Qualcomm and has been valued at $4.5 billion. The platform has drawn comparisons to Github for AI and is aiming for 10 million users in 2024, marking a major growth milestone.
As AI continues to advance, Hugging Face is leading the charge in shifting developers towards a community-driven effort, paving the way for system-sharing and open collaboration.
