AI Markets: Nvidia buys Hugging Face, Anthropic locks in $517 billion in compute

Nvidia steps out of its chipmaker role with the $12.9 billion acquisition of Hugging Face, while Anthropic reveals it has locked in $517 billion in compute contracts in less than a year ahead of its IPO. Elsewhere, a German startup launches the first European rocket to reach orbit from the continent, and Oracle is cutting jobs to fund its own race for AI data centers.

Nvidia steps out of its chipmaker role: $12.9 billion for Hugging Face

Nvidia confirms it is buying AI model platform Hugging Face for $12.9 billion. The deal adds to an investment portfolio already valued at $99 billion, raising questions about how solid that strategy really is.

Key points:

  • Nvidia is buying Hugging Face for $12.9B ($11.9B to shareholders + $1B in stock to retain employees), confirmed on September 3, 2026, with closing targeted for the first half of 2027
  • Nvidia’s 2nd-largest acquisition ever, behind the $20B it paid for Groq’s assets in late 2025
  • Nvidia’s investment portfolio (public and private stakes) reached $99B as of July 26, 2026, versus about $7B a year earlier, plus $25B in additional commitments
  • The portfolio includes an Intel stake valued at $30B and several billion in CoreWeave, reviving the debate over AI’s “circular financing”

Hugging Face, the GitHub of AI, comes under the Nvidia flag

Hugging Face hosts 3 million models, 1 million applications and 500,000 datasets, used by more than 18 million developers, according to figures released by the two companies. Nvidia had already been a shareholder in the French-American startup since a $235 million funding round in 2023, alongside Salesforce and Google.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang promised that Hugging Face “will remain an open platform for the entire AI ecosystem” — a guarantee that addresses a classic concern when a hardware supplier buys the software infrastructure its competitors also depend on. On the day of the announcement, Nvidia stock rose about 1.8% to 2.5% depending on the source, in a market that was itself up that day: the gain can’t be credited entirely to the acquisition.

A $99B portfolio that’s turning into a “stress test”

In two years, Nvidia has built a portfolio of stakes now worth $99B, compared with $2.2B two years ago, according to CNBC. It includes an Intel stake valued at $30B and several billion in CoreWeave, two companies that are also massive buyers of Nvidia chips.

Articles from Yahoo Finance and the Motley Fool (September 6-7, 2026) ask the question: are these stakes a growth engine, or a sign of “circular financing,” where Nvidia invests in companies that then turn around and buy its hardware, artificially inflating apparent demand? CFO Colette Kress said Nvidia had “invested nearly $50B in frontier AI labs” (OpenAI, Anthropic…), an exposure expected to account for “about a quarter” of the group’s revenue next year.

For a European investor: Nvidia (Nasdaq) isn’t eligible for the PEA, which is reserved for companies headquartered in the EU or EEA — you have to go through a standard securities account. Hugging Face, a private company, is off-limits to all retail investors until a possible IPO. Indirect exposure is still possible through US tech ETFs, but most of them are also outside the PEA; only a few synthetic-replication trackers domiciled in France offer a PEA-compatible version.

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Anthropic locks in $517 billion in compute ahead of its IPO

According to The Information, since October 2025 Anthropic has signed contracts locking in at least 14.8 gigawatts of computing power, for a spending commitment that could climb to $517 billion over ten years. That’s nearly three times the plan presented to investors in December 2025.

Key points:

  • According to The Information (September 6, 2026), Anthropic has contracted at least 14.8 GW of compute capacity since October 2025, for a total commitment that could reach $517 billion over the next decade (cloud, chips and data centers combined)
  • That amount far exceeds the $180 billion server-rental plan through 2029 presented to investors in December 2025
  • Amazon confirms a commitment of more than $100 billion over 10 years with AWS, for up to 5 GW of capacity; the exact details of this contract could appear in Anthropic’s S-1 prospectus, according to The Motley Fool
  • Despite this acceleration, Anthropic would still trail OpenAI’s target of 30 GW by 2030, according to calculations reported by the US financial press

What this figure changes compared with what we already knew

We already knew about the big contracts announced in recent months (Nscale, Lambda, Volta, Azure, Fluidstack), which added up to about $175-180 billion in cloud commitments. The $517 billion figure is a tally by The Information of every contract Anthropic has signed since October 2025 — cloud, chips and data centers included — over a ten-year horizon. According to the breakdown reported by several financial outlets, Amazon and Google alone account for about 11 GW (more than $300 billion), Microsoft about 1 GW ($30 billion), and more flexible agreements round out the total, including a SpaceX contract that can be terminated with 90 days’ notice — a sign that not all of these commitments are equally solid.

Neil Campling, an analyst quoted by 24/7 Wall St, sums up the risk: these capacity contracts often work on a “take-or-pay” basis, meaning they act like firm leases rather than variable bills. In his view, Anthropic is “probably going to need that IPO to raise money” — a still-private company committing hundreds of billions of dollars to compute it hasn’t finished financing turns a growth announcement into a signal of cash needs ahead.

The investor angle: still no access, and not before the Nasdaq

Anthropic remains a private company: you can’t buy its shares today, either in a PEA or in a standard European securities account. The S-1 filed confidentially on June 1, 2026, is due to be made public shortly, with a Nasdaq listing targeted for October 2026.

For a retail investor based in Europe, two limits will still hold even after the IPO: a PEA can’t hold a US-listed stock, and a standard securities account will be the only vehicle offering access, with US taxation and currency risk on top. The $517 billion figure is neither a promise of profitability nor a buy signal: it’s a measure of the size of the bet Anthropic is asking its future shareholders to fund.

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Isar Aerospace reaches orbit: a first for Europe, a stock you can’t buy

On September 5, 2026, German startup Isar Aerospace put its Spectrum rocket into orbit from Norway. No launcher had pulled that off from Western European soil before, but the company remains private, with no listed shares.

Key points:

  • On September 5, 2026, the Spectrum rocket reached orbit from the Andøya spaceport (Norway) and deployed five satellites, a first for an orbital launch from Western European soil, according to ESA, Bloomberg and Space.com
  • This success comes 17 months after a failed first flight in March 2025: the rocket crashed 30 seconds after liftoff because a valve opened unexpectedly
  • Isar Aerospace remains a private company, valued at about €2 billion after a €270 million raise in June 2026 (HV Capital, Porsche SE, Lakestar, Airbus Ventures); CEO Daniel Metzler ruled out an IPO at this stage, according to Investing.com
  • With no Isar Aerospace shares available, the closest indirect exposure for a European investor runs through listed, PEA-eligible groups such as OHB SE, Airbus or Safran, shareholders in ArianeGroup and its subsidiary MaiaSpace

The rocket Europe was missing

For decades, Europe has sent satellites into orbit from Kourou, in French Guiana, with Ariane and Vega. No launch had ever succeeded from the soil of continental Western Europe before this flight, according to ESA.

Spectrum changes that. A two-stage rocket standing 28 meters tall, designed and built in-house by Isar Aerospace, it can carry up to 1,000 kg to low Earth orbit, according to the company. That’s a size built for small satellites, a far cry from Ariane 6’s 21 tonnes.

The launch is part of ESA’s Boost! program and the European Launcher Challenge: €543.6 million awarded in late August 2026 to three startups to diversify European launchers, according to SpaceNews. Isar Aerospace gets €197.8 million, Rocket Factory Augsburg €186.9 million and Spain’s PLD Space €158.9 million. The stated goal: reduce Europe’s dependence on SpaceX and on Ariane 6, the continent’s only heavy launcher.

Not public yet, but a few indirect ways in

Isar Aerospace has raised about €870 million in total, according to PitchBook and Tracxn. Its shareholders include Porsche SE, listed in Frankfurt, but the stake is too small a part of its balance sheet to move its share price. No IPO has been announced: the CEO ruled one out at the time of the launch.

For a PEA investor looking for exposure, even indirect, to European “new space,” three listed options exist: OHB SE (satellites, added to the SDAX in August 2026), Airbus and Safran, co-shareholders of ArianeGroup and its subsidiary MaiaSpace, which is also competing in the European Launcher Challenge. None of these stocks reacted clearly to Isar’s launch: OHB lost 24% in a month according to ad-hoc-news, but for reasons with no direct connection (index inclusion, air coming out after a €1 billion IRIS² contract). Berenberg kept its buy rating on OHB, calling the drop excessive. In all three cases, launchers make up only a fraction of the group’s business, with aviation or defense leading the way.

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Oracle cuts jobs to pay for its AI data centers: up to 30,000 more positions in the crosshairs

After 21,000 job cuts in 2026, Oracle is reportedly preparing a new wave of layoffs in September to fund its race for AI data centers. It’s a concrete case of the “bubble vs. supercycle” debate roiling Wall Street.

Key points:

  • According to Yahoo Finance and TheStreet, Oracle managers were told in August to submit lists of affected employees ahead of the start of fiscal Q2 on September 1; some teams could see double-digit percentage cuts
  • TD Cowen estimates that 20,000 to 30,000 additional jobs could go, freeing up $8 to 10B in cash to plug a funding gap estimated at about $20B in the AI data center buildout
  • FY26 free cash flow came in at -$23.7B despite record operating cash flow of $32B, against $55.7B in capex (+162% year over year) and total debt of nearly $129B
  • The first cuts were already visible in early September: about 3,000 jobs eliminated in India (~10% of the local workforce), after 12,000 already cut in the country earlier in 2026

The tech → market bridge: cutting jobs to feed the GPUs

The mechanism is easy to grasp: Oracle is spending more on its AI data centers than its business generates in cash. The result: the company is hunting for money everywhere — debt, equity, and now payroll.

TD Cowen put numbers on the logic: cutting headcount frees up cash, which plugs part of the AI buildout’s funding gap. Oracle plans to raise roughly another $40B in FY27, with a stated preference for equity over debt, which is already expensive ($4.6B in annual interest).

The market didn’t exactly cheer. On September 1, the stock fell about 4% after TD Cowen lowered its price target from $300 to $240 — while keeping its Buy rating. The analysts’ message: AI demand is real (a giant $638B backlog), but the bill for building it out is weighing more and more heavily on the books.

The European investor angle

Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) isn’t eligible for the PEA. A French investor can access it through a standard securities account, or indirectly through a UCITS-format ETF tracking US tech stocks (also outside the PEA, since these ETFs hold non-EU stocks).

Oracle’s AI data center buildout also benefits, indirectly, European suppliers of power and cooling equipment for data centers, such as Schneider Electric — listed in France and PEA-eligible, but whose exposure depends on continued investment across the sector as a whole, not on Oracle’s financial health alone. This information is factual and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell.

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Edition prepared by our monitoring agent (data and sources as of Monday, September 7, 2026), reviewed in line with our editorial policy. General information, not investment advice: investing carries a risk of capital loss.