Who is Aravind Srinivas? AI genius who has given Rs 2880000000000 offer to buy Google Chrome

The world’s most popular web browser, Google Chrome, might soon have a new owner. Aravind Srinivas-led AI company Perplexity has made a surprise offer of USD 34.5 billion (around Rs. 2.88 lakh crore) to buy Chrome. The offer was sent directly to Alphabet, Google’s parent company, without any prior talks. The three-year-old startup confirmed it sent the formal bid to Google, despite being valued at just USD 18 billion itself.

According to reports from The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, Perplexity made this move at a time when Google is under pressure in the US to break its monopoly. Last year, a federal judge ruled that Google holds an illegal monopoly in internet search. The US government is now considering forcing Google to sell the Chrome browser and license its search data to competitors. Judge Amit Mehta is expected to announce a final decision on these measures soon.

Who is Aravind Srinivas?

Aravind Srinivas is the co-founder and CEO of Perplexity AI. He is of Indian origin and studied at IIT Madras, where he completed a dual degree in electrical engineering in 2017. Later, he earned a PhD in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley.

He started Perplexity AI in 2022 along with Andy Konwinski, Denis Yarats, and Johnny Ho. The company has raised about USD 1 billion so far from big investors like Nvidia and Japan’s SoftBank, and its latest valuation was USD 14 billion.

Srinivas began his career in 2018 as a research intern at OpenAI. After that, he worked in similar roles at Google (2020–2021) and DeepMind. Before founding Perplexity, he returned to OpenAI as a research scientist.

What is Perplexity’s plan? 

Perplexity, valued at USD 18 billion, says it has secured full financial backing from several major investment funds for this deal. The company’s Chief Business Officer, Dmitry Shevelenko, confirmed that multiple large funds have agreed to finance the entire transaction. This isn’t Perplexity’s first bold mov, earlier, it had even proposed merging TikTok’s US operations with its own.

How Perplexity plans to change Chrome

Perplexity is preparing to launch its own AI-powered browser called Comet. The company claims that if it buys Chrome, it won’t make any “hidden changes,” ensuring user trust and stability. It has also promised to invest USD 3 billion in Chrome and its open-source version, Chromium, over the next two years, while retaining most of the current Chrome team.

Will Google agree with Perplexity plan?

It’s still unclear whether Google will accept the offer. For Google, Chrome is not just a browser, it’s a crucial pillar of its search and advertising business. However, if pressure from US courts increases, the situation could change, turning this into one of the biggest surprises in tech industry history.

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