Perplexity’s Computer agent can now run locally — if you can afford it
Perplexity, in partnership with Nvidia, has taken Computer, its agentic AI assistant, and brought it to the desktop in the The post Perplexity’s Computer agent can now run locally — if you can afford it appeared first on The New Stack .
Perplexity, in collaboration with Nvidia, has introduced Portable Computer, an agentic AI assistant that can now run locally on desktop devices. While there's significant interest in local AI, setting it up can be challenging and costly. Portable Computer simplifies the process but requires suitable hardware. Two main options exist: a Nvidia DGX Spark desktop with DGX OS or a traditional PC with Ubuntu on ARM or x64 hardware and an Nvidia RTX card with at least 24GB of GPU VRAM.
The former costs $4,800, while the latter's RTX 3090 card with 24GB of VRAM currently costs over $1,500. Perplexity's vice president, Nate Kupp, explains that adapting the agent to local hardware required revisiting nearly all aspects of the stack. The team reused many capabilities but modified the harness and model configuration.
The local model handles task planning, tool management, and multi-step task execution, while a deterministic orchestrator manages the agent loop. The local harness restricts processes, file system paths, and network access, preventing unauthorized tool calls. Perplexity claims this sandbox ensures privacy, with web searches and connector calls happening outside the device.
Portable Computer is currently available for Nvidia users, with Windows support expected in September. Subscribers can use Perplexity's Qwen3.8-27B or PPLX 27B models or bring their own models. Local tasks do not consume usage-based credits unless the system needs to access Perplexity's cloud models.
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