Exclusive: Perplexity inks deal to use CoreWeave's data centers
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Perplexity has signed a multiyear deal with CoreWeave to help power a new generation of services, the AI cloud computing company shared first with Axios.
Why it matters: The move helps CoreWeave as it aims to convince Wall Street it can attract a broad customer base to justify heavy spending on new data centers.
Driving the news: Under the deal, Perplexity will use dedicated Nvidia Grace Blackwell-powered clusters for AI inference.
- CoreWeave will also adopt Perplexity Enterprise Max, allowing its workers to search across the web and internal documents.
What they're saying: "This partnership reflects a wider mix of emerging AI leaders adopting the CoreWeave platform," CEO Mike Intrator told Axios.
- "Like many others, they choose us for our unified AI cloud platform — not just access to capacity — and that is building a more diversified CoreWeave business."
- Perplexity said performance drove its decision to choose CoreWeave.
- "Every infrastructure decision traces back to one question: Does this make Perplexity better for our users?" Perplexity chief business officer Dmitry Shevelenko said in a statement to Axios."
Between the lines: CoreWeave is trying to take advantage of tremendous demand for AI computing, while also ensuring it doesn't overbuild.
- Intrator reiterated on last week's earnings call that the company doesn't just "build and hope" but instead inks committed contracts before building additional capacity.
- However, investors responded skittishly, sending CoreWeave shares sharply lower after the company announced plans to dramatically expand its capital spending this year.
