Perplexity AI Launches On-Device AI: Portable Computer

Perplexity AI has launched Portable Computer, an on-device artificial intelligence agent. This AI is designed to run on desktops equipped with Nvidia silicon. What's interesting is this follows reports that Nvidia might invest in Perplexity AI. Portable Computer is an on-device version of a cloud-based AI agent that debuted in February. Both tools can perform multi-step tasks, like developing web applications. Portable Computer specifically brings these capabilities to Nvidia’s DGX Spark device, which includes a 20-core central processing unit and 128 gigabytes of memory. It uses the open-source Qwen 3.8 27B language model and a version optimized by Perplexity. The software also has guardrails, like a sandbox to prevent unauthorized access. An upcoming update will expand its availability to Windows machines with Nvidia RTX graphics cards. This matters because it brings powerful AI processing directly to desktop computers, potentially speeding up complex tasks for users.