Perplexity AI has taken a surprising step. The startup is reportedly making a bid to acquire Google’s Chrome web browser business.

The offer is remarkably large—valued at US$ 34.5 billion, or roughly Rp 556 trillion (exchange rate Rp 16,128.4). This figure far exceeds Perplexity’s own valuation of around US$ 14 billion (Rp 225 trillion), signaling the company’s bold ambitions in the AI-powered browser competition.

 

The startup, founded and led by Aravind Srinivas, is no stranger to making headline-grabbing offers. Earlier this year, it attempted to acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations, which had come under government scrutiny over Chinese ownership concerns.

 

Several other major players, including OpenAI, Yahoo, and private equity firm Apollo Global Management, are also said to be interested in Chrome. Their interest comes amid regulatory pressure threatening Google’s dominance in the search engine market.

 

Google has not issued any official comments, and the company has never put Chrome up for sale.

 

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, plans to appeal a U.S. court ruling from last year that declared Google illegally monopolized the web browser market. As part of that legal case, the U.S. Department of Justice had even proposed the divestment of Chrome.

 

Perplexity has not detailed exactly how it would finance the acquisition but claims that several investment funds are ready to fully back the deal. The three-year-old startup has raised around US$ 1 billion (Rp 16 trillion) from investors, including Nvidia and SoftBank.

 

The move is seen as strategic, given that web browsers have once again become critical gateways for search traffic and user data in the age of artificial intelligence. Perplexity already operates an AI browser called Comet, and acquiring Chrome could grant it access to over three billion users, strengthening its position against major competitors like OpenAI, which is also developing its own AI browser.

 

According to a Reuters report citing internal documents, Perplexity has pledged to keep Chrome’s core code (Chromium) open source, invest US$ 3 billion (Rp 48 trillion) over two years, and maintain Chrome’s default search engine unchanged.