NVIDIA is negotiating a multi-billion-dollar investment in Perplexity at a $30 billion+ valuation.
NVIDIA wants to secure a massive stake in the future of AI search. The chip giant is negotiating a multi-billion-dollar investment in Perplexity AI that will push the startup’s valuation above $30 billion.
That figure marks a 50% jump from last year. This matches Perplexity’s explosive growth- the startup’s annualized revenue just crossed $750 million, i.e., up from under $250 million in January.
A chipmaker pouring billions into a search app looks unusual at first glance. Yet CEO Jensen Huang plays a strategic long game. NVIDIA isn’t just selling silicon; it buys direct equity in its hungriest software customers. Perplexity already runs its heavy AI agent workloads on NVIDIA chips and infrastructure partners like CoreWeave.
Before offering cash, NVIDIA explored licensing Perplexity’s tech directly. Shifting to an equity check builds a far stronger partnership. By financing the app layer, NVIDIA guarantees that top AI tools will run on its silicon.
Google and OpenAI dominate search distribution, but Perplexity gives NVIDIA direct exposure to end users. NVIDIA uses its massive profits to back tomorrow’s software winners.
That strategy ensures one key outcome: whoever wins the AI search war, NVIDIA collects the toll.
