Nvidia is negotiating to support Perplexity at a valuation exceeding $30 billion.

      Nvidia is reportedly in discussions to invest in Perplexity, with the deal potentially valuing the AI search firm at over $30 billion, according to The Information. The negotiations also included the possibility of a technology licensing agreement in addition to the investment.

      These talks represent a deeper connection than the standard investor-customer dynamic, as Perplexity was one of the initial adopters of Nvidia's Vera CPU. A valuation exceeding $30 billion would indicate a more than 50% increase from the approximately $20 billion valuation Perplexity had after its last funding round, positioning it among the most highly valued private AI firms globally. While the funding round is expected to be worth billions, details regarding the size of Nvidia's proposed equity stake or the identities of other investors remain undisclosed.

      Neither Nvidia nor Perplexity has made public comments on the matter, and it is uncertain if the licensing aspect is still part of the discussions or has been removed.

      In one way, these negotiations are not surprising as Nvidia has become accustomed to making significant equity investments. In 2026 alone, its equity investments exceeded $40 billion, targeting model developers, neoclouds, and infrastructure firms that typically purchase Nvidia’s technology with these funds.

      This cycle has begun to attract scrutiny; when Nvidia announced around $750 billion in AI-related commitments, its credit default swaps climbed to unprecedented levels, indicating that the arrangement may be perceived as financing its own purchases rather than diversifying its portfolio.

      Perplexity serves as a prominent example of this trend. Founded in 2022 and led by Aravind Srinivas, it developed a conversational search tool that directly answers user queries instead of displaying a list of links, and has spent the last two years enhancing its product to support its value.

      In August 2025, Perplexity made an unsolicited $34.5 billion offer for Google's Chrome browser, which was approximately double its valuation at the time, but Google did not consider the offer. The company has since focused on its own AI browser, Comet, aimed at what Srinivas refers to as agentic browsing.

      The competitive landscape has remained fierce. Google has integrated conversational responses into its results, OpenAI has expanded ChatGPT's capabilities into search and launched its own browser, both of which come with distribution advantages that Perplexity must acquire or develop.

      Perplexity has not made its audited financials public, and the commonly cited estimates of its annualized run rate are derived from investor briefings and outside reports rather than the company itself, making any valuation multiple around $30 billion speculative.

      Nvidia is already an investor in Perplexity, having participated in prior funding rounds that included Jeff Bezos. A licensing agreement, if approved, would represent an uncommon move, allowing Perplexity to access Nvidia's technology under different terms than a typical customer relationship, while also enabling Nvidia to influence the development of AI search beyond just the hardware aspect.

      Currently, the round remains unconfirmed, which is significant as reports about AI valuations often emerge before term sheets are finalized. Perplexity itself has been featured in several valuation reports over the past 18 months, with figures ranging from $14 billion to $20 billion, each with various sources attached, and each taking time to solidify into an actionable figure.

      Nvidia will announce its next quarterly results in November. The presence of a Perplexity investment in its financials by that time could provide insight into the pace of this investment cycle, possibly more so than the valuation itself.