Perplexity Deal Boosts CoreWeave Shares After Stock Dip

AI search company Perplexity signs multi-year deal to run workloads on CoreWeave's cloud platform, sending CRWV stock up 5.7% in pre-market trading.

Published on Mar. 4, 2026

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Perplexity, an AI search company, has signed a multi-year deal to run its AI workloads on CoreWeave's cloud platform. The deal will see Perplexity utilize CoreWeave's NVIDIA GB200 NVL72-powered clusters to support its fast-growing AI products and services. Investors reacted positively to the news, pushing CoreWeave's stock up roughly 5.7% in pre-market trading, despite the company's shares falling 8% in extended trading the previous day on weaker-than-expected earnings.

Why it matters

The partnership with Perplexity diversifies CoreWeave's customer base beyond its existing concentration with Microsoft and OpenAI, providing the company with fresh ammunition for growth. It also highlights CoreWeave's positioning as a cloud provider built specifically for powering AI workloads, a rapidly expanding market.

The details

Under the deal, Perplexity will run its AI workloads, including its Sonar and Search API services, on CoreWeave's Kubernetes-based infrastructure. Perplexity is also bringing its Enterprise Max product into CoreWeave's offices, allowing staff to leverage advanced AI models for web searches, internal knowledge base access, and multi-step research. Perplexity has already begun deploying workloads on CoreWeave's platform as part of the first phase of the partnership.

  • The deal was announced on March 4, 2026.
  • CoreWeave's Co-Founder and Chief Development Officer Brannin McBee will speak at the Morgan Stanley TMT Conference in San Francisco on March 4, 2026, starting at 4:05 p.m. Eastern.
  • CoreWeave's Vice President Nick Robbins will speak at the Cantor Global Technology Conference in New York on March 10, 2026, at 2:30 p.m. Eastern.

The players

Perplexity

An AI search company that has signed a multi-year deal to run its AI workloads on CoreWeave's cloud platform.

CoreWeave

A cloud platform provider that specializes in powering AI workloads, and has signed a deal with Perplexity to host the latter's AI infrastructure.

Max Hjelm

The SVP of Revenue at CoreWeave, who stated that AI applications running in production require more than just raw computing power, but also best-in-class performance, reliability, and a cloud platform designed end-to-end for AI.

Dmitry Shevelenko

The Chief Business Officer at Perplexity, who called CoreWeave an 'essential partner' for the company's future plans.

Mike Intrator

The CEO of CoreWeave, who said that the $2 billion investment from Nvidia will help the company 'accelerate our build' and spread its customer base, leading to 'continued diversification'.

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What they’re saying

“AI applications running in production require more than just access to raw infrastructure; they require best-in-class performance and reliability as well as a cloud platform designed end-to-end for AI that simplifies compute operations.”

— Max Hjelm, SVP of Revenue, CoreWeave

“CoreWeave is an essential partner for where we're headed.”

— Dmitry Shevelenko, Chief Business Officer, Perplexity

What’s next

CoreWeave is planning to spend between $30 billion and $35 billion on capital expenditures in 2026, a sharp jump from $10.31 billion in 2025, as it aims to hit more than 1.7 gigawatts of active power by year-end and grow beyond five gigawatts past its contracted footprint by 2030.

The takeaway

The Perplexity deal gives CoreWeave a high-profile new customer outside its existing Microsoft/OpenAI concentration, providing fresh diversification and growth opportunities for the cloud provider as it continues to position itself as a leading platform for powering AI workloads at scale.