Nvidia is in talks to invest in Perplexity at a valuation above $30 billion, according to a report from The Information relayed by Reuters. The deal, if it closes at that level, would deepen an existing relationship between the world's most valuable chipmaker and one of the fastest-growing AI search startups, and would land Perplexity in the top tier of privately held AI companies by market value.
Nvidia is already a backer of Perplexity from earlier rounds, so the new discussion is an extension of an existing bet rather than a first-time endorsement. The $30 billion-plus mark represents a meaningful step up from Perplexity's previously reported valuations, which had climbed steadily through 2024 and 2025 as the company pushed its answer engine into enterprise and consumer distribution deals.
Neither Nvidia nor Perplexity has publicly confirmed the talks, and terms including the check size, share class, and any commercial commitments tied to the equity have not been disclosed. Investment discussions at this stage frequently shift on valuation and structure before closing, and the number reported today should be read as the working figure rather than a settled one.
Key facts
- 01Nvidia is in talks to invest in Perplexity at a valuation above $30 billion.
- 02Nvidia is already an existing backer of Perplexity from earlier funding rounds.
- 03The deal would extend Nvidia's pattern of taking equity stakes in the AI startups that buy its chips.
For Nvidia, the investment fits an increasingly visible pattern. The chipmaker has taken equity positions in a widening set of AI companies that are simultaneously among its largest GPU customers, including CoreWeave, Lambda, Mistral, Figure, xAI, and OpenAI-adjacent infrastructure plays. Each stake gives Nvidia upside on the model-and-application layer built atop its silicon, and reinforces the demand signal that has driven its data center revenue to record highs.
That model has drawn scrutiny. Critics have pointed to what they describe as circular economics — Nvidia sells chips to a startup, invests in that startup, and books revenue as the startup spends the capital on more Nvidia chips. Nvidia has responded that its investments are minority positions made on standard terms and that customers are free to buy from competing suppliers. Regulators in the US and Europe have opened preliminary looks at parts of the AI supply chain, though no action has targeted Nvidia's investment activity specifically.
Perplexity's pitch has evolved considerably since its 2022 launch. The company started as an AI-native search interface challenging Google, then layered on a paid Pro tier, enterprise offerings, and distribution partnerships with device makers and telecoms. It has publicly floated plans for its own browser and has been in negotiations with major publishers over content licensing terms, an area where competing AI search products have drawn litigation.
A $30 billion-plus round would put Perplexity in the same rough valuation neighborhood as xAI's earlier tranches and well above most standalone AI application companies. It would also give the company significantly more runway to compete against Google's AI Overviews and against ChatGPT's search features, both of which are integrated into much larger existing distribution.
The competitive stakes for search are real. Google Discover and Google Search have been rolling out AI-driven features that reshape how users find information, and publisher traffic from traditional search has come under pressure as answer-style results reduce click-through. Perplexity is trying to occupy the answer-engine category before the incumbents fully close the gap, and capital at this scale is the primary lever.
The unknowns are whether the round closes at the reported level, whether Nvidia's stake comes with any commercial commitments around GPU purchasing, and how Perplexity's revenue is tracking against a valuation that implies a demanding growth curve. The company has not publicly disclosed recent ARR figures, and the answer-engine category as a whole has been criticized for high query costs relative to monetization.
Nvidia's continued willingness to write equity checks into its own customer base is the more durable signal here. As long as GPU supply remains the binding constraint on AI progress, the company that controls that supply gets to pick winners at the application layer — and increasingly, to own a piece of them. Perplexity is the latest name in that pattern, not the last.
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