Synthetic intelligence startup Perplexity AI has made an unsolicited $34.5 billion bid for Google’s Chrome browser, CNBC confirmed on Tuesday.
That determine is greater than Perplexity’s present valuation, however the firm mentioned a number of traders have agreed to again the deal. In July, Perplexity was valued at $18 billion as a part of an extension that valued the corporate at $14 billion months earlier.
Google didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s request for remark. The Wall Avenue Journal was first to report the bid.
Perplexity is finest identified for its AI-powered search engine that provides customers easy solutions to questions and hyperlinks out to the unique supply materials on the internet. Final month, it launched its personal AI-powered browser referred to as Comet.
The startup is in the course of a battle for supremacy in generative AI, with corporations together with Meta and OpenAI providing large salaries and signing bonuses to high engineers. Megacap tech corporations are spending tens of billions of {dollars} a yr on AI infrastructure to construct massive language fashions and run hefty workloads, whereas startups are elevating billions of {dollars} from enterprise traders, hedge funds and tech giants to pay for the {hardware} and headcount wanted to compete.
Perplexity was approached by Meta earlier this yr a couple of potential acquisition, however the corporations didn’t finalize a deal.
Perpexity’s bid comes after the U.S. Division of Justice proposed Google divest Chrome as a part of the antitrust swimsuit the corporate misplaced final yr. The choose within the case dominated that Google has held an unlawful monopoly in its core market of web search.
Chrome, which Google launched in 2008, supplies the search large with information it then makes use of for concentrating on advertisements. The DOJ mentioned in a submitting following the court docket’s resolution that forcing the corporate to eliminate Chrome would create a extra equal enjoying subject for search opponents.
“To treatment these harms, the [Initial Proposed Final Judgment] requires Google to divest Chrome, which is able to completely cease Google’s management of this vital search entry level and permit rival engines like google the power to entry the browser that for a lot of customers is a gateway to the web,” the DOJ wrote.
That is breaking information. Please refresh for updates.
WATCH: Perplexity makes unsolicited $34.5 billion bid for Google’s Chrome browser
[/gpt3]
