Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity AI, has issued a challenge for the elite Indian Institutes of Technology on Feb. 1, that puts AI-driven research to test. This two-week challenge allows students to unlock Perplexity Pro campus-wide, allowing them access to cutting-edged, AI-powered research tools. The winning IIT would gain a visit from alumnus Srinivas.
“We’re launching a two week event for all IITs. Students at each IIT have the opportunity to unlock Perplexity Pro for their entire campus, and I’ll be visiting the IIT with the most Perplexity users later this year,” Srinivas announced in an X post.
READ: AI startup Perplexity nears $9 billion valuation amid copyright lawsuits from publishers (November 6, 2024)
Earlier, he took to the same social media platform to announce, “We’ve given free Perplexity Pro to all students and faculty and staff of IIT Madras, where I did my undergrad. Super excited to start there as we begin our expansion for Indian campuses.”
Perplexity AI is an AI-powered search engine that has a Chat-GPT style user interface and allows generates answers using web sources and most importantly cites links in the responses.
Launched in 2022, Perplexity quickly gained traction in the competitive AI market, attracting significant investor interest. Despite several setbacks, including copyright infringement lawsuits, Perplexity achieved a valuation nearing $9 billion in 2023, driven by its innovative search engine that combines multiple large language models to deliver accurate responses.
On Jan. 30, the Indian American CEO also announced that the Pro version of Perplexity was “free for a year for all government employees” in the United States.
“Log in with a .gov email and you will be able to make use of advanced reasoning and deep searches! This will hopefully contribute meaningfully to driving more efficiency in the government!,” Srinivas wrote.
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Most recently, Perplexity launched Sonar API, which allows developers and enterprises to build its generative AI tools using their own applications. Perplexity was also in the talks to merge with TikTok following the looming ban in the U.S.
Previously, Srinivas had shown interest in collaborating with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to expand access to Perplexity Pro. “If @narendramodi ji is interested, I would be down to figuring out an economic structure where all Indian students, faculty and researchers can get Perplexity Pro,” he wrote in an X post.