Perplexity boosts AI coding with Nvidia's new CPU

AI startup Perplexity has announced its adoption of Nvidia's new central processing units (CPUs). These 'Vera' chips represent Nvidia's strategic move to broaden its market reach, challenging established CPU giants like Intel and AMD. Nvidia anticipates generating $20 billion in sales from these more generic computing chips within the current fiscal year.

The introduction of 'Vera' CPUs addresses the evolving demands of artificial intelligence, particularly the rise of AI "agents." These agents perform complex tasks autonomously after receiving user instructions. Perplexity's Vice President for Computer Enterprise and Infrastructure, Nate Kupp, reported that Nvidia's CPU executed AI agent coding tasks about 1.5 times faster than conventional CPUs. Kupp emphasized that 'Vera' is an ideal fit for their core workloads, a sentiment echoed by other major AI players like OpenAI and Anthropic who also plan to use Nvidia's CPUs.