Clément Delangue

Clément Delangue
Born	La Bassée, France
Nationality	French
Education	ESCP Business School Stanford University (non-degree) IIM Bangalore (postgraduate program)
Occupation	CEO and co-founder of Hugging Face
Known for	Open-source AI leadership Founder of Hugging Face

Clément Delangue is a French entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of Hugging Face, an open-source platform that has become a global leader in collaborative artificial intelligence development. Known for promoting openness and transparency in AI, Delangue has built Hugging Face into a central hub for developers, researchers, and enterprises working with machine learning and natural language processing.

Early Life and Education

Clément Delangue was born in La Bassée, a small town in northern France. He demonstrated entrepreneurial instincts early in life, becoming one of France’s top eBay sellers at the age of 17. He pursued his higher education at ESCP Business School in Paris, and also attended programs at Stanford University and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore, focusing on management and innovation.

Professional Journey

Delangue's career began with key roles in tech startups:

• At Moodstocks, he worked on computer vision and machine learning (acquired by Google)
• At Mention, he led product management in social media monitoring
• Co-founded platforms like VideoNot.es and UniShared, focused on collaborative learning

These experiences shaped his product-first and community-driven approach to building scalable digital platforms.

Founding Hugging Face

In 2016, Delangue co-founded Hugging Face along with Julien Chaumond and Thomas Wolf in New York City. Initially launched as a chatbot app for teenagers, the company soon pivoted after open-sourcing its underlying natural language processing model. This led to the creation of the Transformers library, which became the backbone of open-source NLP development worldwide.

Growth and Global Impact

Under Delangue’s leadership, Hugging Face has evolved into one of the most trusted names in open-source AI:

• Hosts over 1 million+ repositories, including models, datasets, and training pipelines
• Serves 15,000+ organizations, including Microsoft, Meta, and Google
• Raised $235 million Series D in August 2023 at a valuation of $4.5 billion
• Hugging Face now leads in model-sharing for transformers, diffusion models, LLMs, and more

Vision and Open-Source Philosophy

Delangue is a vocal advocate for open science, decentralized AI development, and ethical transparency in artificial intelligence. He champions a future where:

• AI is accessible to developers worldwide, not restricted to a few tech giants
• Research is collaborative and reproducible
• Innovation is rooted in community contribution

Hugging Face exemplifies this ethos by integrating GitHub-like collaboration tools into AI, enabling frictionless sharing of models, code, and data.

Recognition

Clément Delangue has received numerous accolades for his contributions:

• Featured in Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe in 2017
• Named one of the Top 100 Most Influential French People by Vanity Fair in 2021
• Recognized globally for his thought leadership in ethical AI and collaborative innovation

Personal Philosophy

Delangue frequently shares insights on social media, often emphasizing humility, openness, and the need for a developer-first ecosystem in building responsible AI. He is regarded as a new-age tech leader, bridging innovation and accessibility in the AI revolution.

Conclusion

Clément Delangue’s journey—from an eBay teen entrepreneur in France to the visionary CEO of Hugging Face—is a testament to the power of democratized technology and community-driven innovation. By fostering openness in AI, he continues to inspire a new generation of technologists dedicated to building a future where artificial intelligence is open, ethical, and inclusive.

See Also

• Hugging Face
• Open-source artificial intelligence
• Thomas Wolf (AI researcher)