DevOps / SRE / Platform · 25.08.2026, 17:01 UTC
Perplexity’s Computer agent can now run locally — if you can afford it
| Schweregrad | info |
|---|---|
| Kategorie | DevOps / SRE / Platform |
| Quelle | The New Stack ↗ |
| Veröffentlicht | 25.08.2026 UTC |
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Perplexity, in partnership with Nvidia, has taken Computer, its agentic AI assistant, and brought it to the desktop in the form of Portable Computer.
While there is a lot of interest in local AI right now, getting started can still be difficult — and expensive. Portable Computer definitely makes it easier to get started, but to run it, you need the right kind of machine.
Local AI’s hardware bill
As of now, there are two main options. The easiest way is to get a DGX Spark desktop from Nvidia running DGX OS. But if you have a more traditional PC that’s running Ubuntu on ARM or x64 hardware, and you have an Nvidia RTX card with at least 24GB of GPU VRAM, you’re also in business.
A DGX Spark will set you back $4,800, and even an older RTX 3090 card with 24GB of VRAM currently costs well over $1,500.
Thanks to RAMmageddon, this won’t likely get cheaper anytime soon.
Bringing Computer to the desktop took more than replacing a cloud model with a smaller one. It needs to be able to read and edit files, run shell commands, and process PDFs, for example, locally — but it also needs to be able to connect to external services. All of this, too, needs a local sandbox for the agent to run in.
To account for these smaller models, Nate Kupp, Perplexity’s vice president of Computer Enterprise and Infrastructure, tells The New Stack that the team had to “revisit almost everything throughout the stack.” The company reused many of Computer’s capabilities, he says, but changed the harness and model configuration for local hardware.
Indeed, the harness accounted for most of the …