State of Open Source on Hugging Face: Spring 2026

The open-source AI ecosystem has experienced rapid growth, with the number of users, models, and datasets on Hugging Face nearly doubling over the past year. Despite this expansion, the platform remains highly concentrated, with the top 0.01% of models comprising almost 50% of all downloads. A significant geographical shift has occurred, with models from China now surpassing the U.S. in total downloads. This growth reflects a move toward active participation, as users increasingly create derivative artifacts like fine-tuned models and applications rather than just consuming pre-trained systems.