Perplexity launches AI that runs entirely on your computer
Perplexity’s Portable Computer lets users run AI workflows locally on NVIDIA hardware while keeping sensitive work on their own machines.
Your next AI assistant may not need to live in the cloud.
Perplexity has launched Portable Computer, a local-first version of Perplexity Computer designed to run on a user’s own machine. Built with NVIDIA, it can analyse data, work across files and run complex workflows on-device instead of sending every task to remote servers.
This is particularly helpful for people working with confidential documents, private code, financial files or sensitive business information.
An AI assistant that keeps work local
Portable Computer is built around a simple idea: keep private work where it already is.
Perplexity says the tool can read local files, search documents and code, take actions on the device and keep jobs running locally. Work handled by the local model also does not consume Perplexity credits, which could make it useful for high-volume tasks.
It is not completely disconnected from the cloud, though. If a task needs current web information, browser access, connected apps or more advanced reasoning, Portable Computer can send that part of the task to the cloud.
Perplexity says this happens only when the user authorises it, allowing sensitive work to stay on the device while still giving users access to wider research when needed.
NVIDIA is doing the heavy lifting
Portable Computer is launching first on DGX Spark, NVIDIA’s desktop-sized AI computer, with support for NVIDIA RTX GPU PCs coming soon.
The system runs with PPLX 27Bor Qwen 3.8 27B (This is a post-trained version of Alibaba Group's Qwen model). NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning, a 30B open model, is also expected to be added to the model picker.
DGX Spark uses NVIDIA’s Grace Blackwell GB10 platform, combining a 20-core Arm CPU with an NVIDIA GPU and 128 GB of unified memory. Perplexity says users can install Portable Computer through a one-click setup in its app.
It can still work with your favourite apps
Going local does not mean working in isolation. Portable Computer supports connectors for Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, and GitHub. A user could, for example, ask it to compare GitHub issues with bug reports in Gmail, organise the findings locally and prepare a Slack update.
Dictation also runs locally using NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 ASR, so spoken notes and private briefings do not need to go to the cloud. Perplexity says the system also uses isolated sandbox environments for code and tool execution. These controlled spaces limit what the AI can access or change.
Who gets it first?
For now, Portable Computer is available to Perplexity Pro and Max subscribers using NVIDIA DGX Spark. The first release is on Linux, with Windows support planned.
The launch points to a bigger change in AI. As local chips become more powerful and models become smaller and more capable, advanced AI work may no longer need to happen entirely in distant data centres.