Nvidia has been working hard to persuade Wall Street that its stand-alone central-processing unit can be another major revenue generator. That looks to be a step closer after confirmation that artificial-intelligence startup Perplexity will use Nvidia's Vera CPUs.

Perplexity executives said they would use Nvidia's CPUs and that they carry out AI agent -- or autonomous software -- coding tasks around 1.5 times faster than traditional CPUs, in an interview with Reuters. However, they didn't disclose how many chips they intend to buy.

Nvidia has previously invested in Perplexity, which was reported to be valued at around $20 billion in a fundraising round last September.

Nvidia has estimated that stand-alone sales of Vera CPUs could bring in $20 billion in revenue this year, with a total potential market of $200 billion. The market is still waiting to see how the take up of Nvidia's CPUs against those of rivals Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. The stocks of Intel and AMD have outperformed Nvidia in recent months.

Nvidia shares are falling 1.45% in the Wednesday premarket to $194.36, after closing up 0.7% the previous day.

Nvidia was a Barron's stock pick in mid-May when shares were trading at $226.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires