HP and Crusoe Formed Strategic Ties With Perplexity
The partnerships aim to integrate AI search into consumer hardware and scale model training with high-density GPU clusters.
Updated on Sept. 30, 2026 in Artificial Intelligence
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On September 15, 2026, HP announced that it will preload the Perplexity Windows application on new PCs, starting with the ZBook Ultra G3a. Simultaneously, infrastructure provider Crusoe secured a multi-year deal to train and serve Perplexity AI models.
Why it matters
As Perplexity balances rapid revenue growth with ongoing legal challenges from publishers, these partnerships signal an attempt to cement its position in both the consumer desktop market and the high-performance AI infrastructure sector.
Crusoe will utilize Nvidia GB300 NVL72 clusters, which pack 72 Blackwell Ultra GPUs per rack, to support Perplexity's model lifecycle. Perplexity currently faces copyright litigation from seven major publishers, including a case involving 17,000 CNN stories.
The players
Perplexity
An AI company specializing in search-based models that synthesize web content into user answers.
HP
A global hardware manufacturer known for its PC and enterprise laptop computing stacks.
Crusoe
An infrastructure provider focused on operating large-scale AI compute clusters.
Paul Engelmayer
A federal judge presiding over copyright litigation in the Southern District of New York.
CNN
A major media organization currently involved in copyright litigation against AI developers.
The details
Perplexity operates by processing web content to generate synthesized answers for user queries. The newly announced infrastructure integration uses Crusoe's high-density compute clusters to manage the resource-intensive process of training and serving these AI models. Meanwhile, HP's hardware integration targets the consumer experience by embedding the interface directly into the Windows environment.
Timeline
October 2024: Dow Jones and New York Post filed the first lawsuits.
May 28, 2026: CNN joined the copyright litigation against Perplexity.
July 31, 2026: Judge Paul Engelmayer denied the motion to dismiss the Reddit copyright suit.
August 2026: Perplexity reached $750 million in annualized revenue.
September 15, 2026: HP and Crusoe announced their respective partnerships.
The Tech Race
Perplexity is currently maneuvering through significant legal headwinds in the Southern District of New York as seven publishers press copyright claims against its scraping practices. These new partnerships with HP and Crusoe represent a dual-track effort to secure market distribution and backend compute efficiency amidst that litigation.
PC users will begin to see Perplexity integration on new HP hardware, starting with the ZBook Ultra G3a. Future devices from HP are expected to include the application in the coming months.
The takeaway
Perplexity is aggressively scaling its commercial infrastructure despite a precarious legal environment regarding training data. Observers should monitor the progression of the Reddit case following the recent change in Perplexity's legal counsel to Proskauer Rose.
Further reading
For more on the industry's approach to large-scale model training and deployment, visit Artificial Intelligence.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Startup Fortune.
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