With over 5 million customers, Hugging Face is likely one of the most used platforms by AI engineers, builders, and builders. That is primarily as a result of it provides entry to virtually each common open-source mannequin or framework.
Other than internet hosting over a million open-source fashions, over 4 lakh functions, and a pair of.5 lakh datasets, the platform provides distributed GPU providers by way of ZeroGPU and encompasses a thriving group of engineers, researchers, and lovers.
The entire choices talked about above can be found free of charge. Whereas some include restricted capabilities, others are limitless. It permits customers to host limitless public fashions and datasets without charge and allows them to create organisations and communities with none member limits.
Supply: Hugging Face
A number of individuals on social media have puzzled how the platform makes cash and generates income whereas persevering with to supply providers free of charge.
Hugging Face has quietly grow to be the most important AI app retailer with 400,000 complete apps, 2,000 new apps created daily, getting visited 2.5M occasions each week!
Now you may search by means of any of them with AI or classes.
The way forward for AI shall be distributed, have enjoyable everybody! pic.twitter.com/34FbvzceKL— clem
(@ClementDelangue) February 4, 2025
Moreover, final yr, the corporate dedicated to sharing $10 million value of compute by way of the ZeroGPU initiative.
Nevertheless, Hugging Face has an easy, freemium enterprise mannequin like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.
Hugging Face Thrives on a Freemium Enterprise Mannequin
Hugging Face is worthwhile in the intervening time. The platform provides many paid providers for enterprises and people who want increased utilization limits. It provides a $9 month-to-month PRO subscription, which gives elevated entry to inference, compute, and storage.
Moreover, it provides a plan known as Enterprise Hub, which begins at $20 per person, per 30 days. Utilizing this plan, organisations and enterprises can deploy their AI fashions, frameworks and functions on Hugging Face. This provides higher safety, potential to pick out the area the place knowledge is saved, precedence buyer assist, and extra options related to enterprises.
The platform provides two digital CPUs (vCPUs) and 16 GB of reminiscence to deploy and host functions on Hugging Face Areas free of charge. It then provides incremental upgrades beginning at $0.03 per hour.
Supply: Hugging Face
Moreover, the platform provides paid entry to cloud-based AI infrastructure from suppliers like AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, and extra, with an added value, beginning at $0.033 per hour.
“We make good cash by way of compute credit, Enterprise Hub, and Hugging Face Professional subscriptions. Enterprise is sweet,” Vaibhav Srivastav, a senior official at Hugging Face, mentioned. “Greater than one million enterprises, startups and builders of enterprises rely upon it.”
The platform’s enterprise hub is utilized by firms comparable to Mercedes-Benz, IBM, and Deutsche Telekom.
Through the years, the platform has additionally represented wholesome income development. In response to an estimate from Sacra, the corporate showcased a 367% income development from 2022 to 2023. The final estimated income of the corporate stood at $70 million in annualised income by the top of 2023.
The corporate has additionally been backed by vital enterprise capital. As per Crunchbase, it has raised practically $400 million in eight funding rounds, backed by Sequoia Capital, Google, and NVIDIA, amongst others. As of its final funding spherical in August 2023, Hugging Face is at the moment valued at $4.5 billion.
Final July, Clement Delangue, co-founder and CEO of Hugging Face, mentioned that the platform is incomes a revenue regardless of having “loads of cash within the financial institution”.
“[It is] particularly noteworthy at a time when most AI startups wouldn’t survive a yr or two with out VC cash,” he added.
In a podcast episode with enterprise capitalist Matt Turck, Delangue supplied additional insights into how the corporate operates. In response to him, the corporate’s freemium mannequin permits a small portion of the customers to pay for providers, so that almost all of the platform can proceed to stay open supply and free.
Delangue mentioned the corporate recognized that premium assist and premium options enchantment most to the enterprise section, particularly options round safety and person administration. This fashion, it was in a position to place the platform as a compelling worth addition to enterprise clients.
“Most giant enterprises utilizing AI are utilizing us a method or one other,” he mentioned, including that enormous firms like Microsoft and NVIDIA are large clients of the platform. Furthermore, he revealed that, as of at present, 1 lakh organisations use the platform, whereas 2,000 firms are utilizing the Enterprise Hub.
Past AI Fashions, Hugging Face Has Ventured Into Robotics
Furthermore, the corporate is venturing into robotics. Just a few days in the past, Hugging Face introduced two open-source humanoid robots, HopeJR and Reachy Mini.
HopeJR is a full-sized humanoid robotic that includes 66 actuated levels of freedom, enabling it to stroll and manipulate objects. Reachy Mini is a desktop unit designed for AI utility testing able to head motion, speech, and auditory interplay.
HopeJR is predicted to be priced round $3,000, whereas Reachy Mini shall be round $300, topic to tariffs.
Not too long ago, the corporate introduced the launch of SO-101, an open-source robotic arm in collaboration with The Robotic Studio, WowRobo, Seeed Studio, and PartaBot.
The SO-101, designed for AI builders, is now obtainable globally at a worth starting from $100 to $500. In April, Hugging Face acquired Pollen Robotics, a French startup specialising in open-source humanoids.
“The necessary facet is that these robots are open supply, so anybody can assemble, rebuild [and] perceive how they work. And [they’re] reasonably priced, so robotics doesn’t get dominated by only a few large gamers with harmful black-box methods.” Delangue advised TechCrunch
The publish So, How Does Hugging Face Make Cash? appeared first on Analytics India Journal.
