February 20, 2026
Open arms or open season?
Ggml.ai joins Hugging Face to ensure the long-term progress of Local AI
Fans cheer, cynics yell “sellout” — and Local AI grabs popcorn
TLDR: Llama.cpp’s founding team is joining Hugging Face to keep local, run-at-home AI open and easier to use. The crowd’s split between applause for more support and fears of consolidation, with jokes, praise, and “sellout” worries all colliding as people wait to see if openness truly holds.
The crew behind llama.cpp — the tiny, blazing-fast tool powering AI on your laptop — is moving under the umbrella of Hugging Face. The pitch: keep it 100% open, add serious long‑term resources, and make “one‑click” local AI a reality by plugging deeper into Hugging Face’s ecosystem. Translation for non‑nerds: the makers of a popular DIY AI engine are joining the biggest open‑source AI hub to make it easier, faster, and more dependable to run AI at home.
And the community? Oh, it’s spicy. One commenter compared it to a startup cash‑out, calling it “almost the same as Bun getting bought,” with a jab that “VCs needed an exit.” Others are popping confetti cannons: Hugging Face is the “silent GOAT,” the low‑key hero of open AI. Then there’s the worry crew asking the million‑dollar question: can Hugging Face keep the lights on without selling out later? Meanwhile, veterans argue whether HF is everywhere or “not part of the discussion at all.”
Between cheers and side‑eye, the drama boils down to this: is this consolidation or salvation? The team swears nothing changes except more support, faster updates, and smoother installs. The memes write themselves: “Hugging Face, now literally hugging Local AI,” and “Single‑click to summon your offline robot butler.” For now, the vibe is hopeful — but receipts will be checked if licenses tighten or paywalls creep in.
Key Points
- •ggml.ai, the founding team behind llama.cpp, is joining Hugging Face to support and scale the ggml/llama.cpp ecosystem.
- •The partnership aims to ensure long-term sustainability while keeping ggml/llama.cpp 100% open-source and community-driven.
- •Hugging Face previously contributed features, multimodal support, model implementations, and platform integrations (e.g., Inference Endpoints, GGUF compatibility).
- •The teams will focus on seamless integration with the Hugging Face transformers library and improving packaging and user experience for ggml-based software.
- •Georgi and the team will continue full-time maintenance with autonomous technical and architectural decision-making; the vision is to enable accessible open-source superintelligence with the Local AI community.