Perplexity Signs 750 Million Dollar Agreement with Microsoft for AI Cloud and Models
Perplexity has entered a three-year, $750 million agreement with Microsoft for Azure services. The startup will use Microsoft Foundry to source frontier models.
Insights:
Perplexity has signed a three-year, $750 million agreement with Microsoft Corporation to utilize its Azure cloud service, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. The significant multi-year arrangement designates Microsoft Foundry as the primary AI platform for Perplexity to source and run a variety of frontier models. This commercial commitment marks a structural shift for the startup, which is described in reports as being backed by Nvidia.
Under the terms of the new agreement, Perplexity will gain access to a range of high-performance systems via the Microsoft Foundry program. According to reporting from Bloomberg, this includes models developed by OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI. A spokesperson for Microsoft Corporationconfirmed to Reuters that Perplexity chose Microsoft Foundry as its primary AI platform for model sourcing under the new multi-year deal. Additionally, a spokesperson for Perplexity told Bloomberg News that the company is partnering with the technology giant specifically for access to frontier models from X, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
