Details
- Perplexity introduces SPACE (Sandboxed Platform for Agentic Code Execution), the sandbox infrastructure behind Perplexity Computer.
- SPACE creates isolated environments for code execution, file access, and long-running agent sessions, designed for workflows that run for hours or days.
- The architecture separates the agent session from the sandbox: each task runs in a disposable Firecracker microVM that is destroyed once the work completes.
- Rolling snapshots preserve live memory and files, enabling sessions to pause, resume, or branch across multiple sandboxes without persisting credentials inside the VM.
- SPACE has handled 100% of Perplexity Computer’s production traffic since June, replacing earlier third-party sandbox infrastructure.
- On identical production traffic, SPACE cut median sandbox creation latency from 185 ms to 60 ms and reduced P90 latency from 447 ms to 89 ms.
- The platform is built for secure, efficient agent runtimes, keeping credentials outside the sandbox and using ephemeral microVMs to minimize blast radius and cross-tenant risk.
- In its first weeks, SPACE has already processed millions of sandbox creations and tens of millions of reconnects for Perplexity Computer, demonstrating scalability under real-world load.
- The system’s session/sandbox separation and rolling snapshot mechanism allow long-running tools and agents to maintain state over time while each individual sandbox remains short-lived and disposable.
Impact
By moving all Computer traffic onto SPACE, Perplexity is vertically integrating a key layer of agent infrastructure, trading dependency on generic short-lived sandboxes for a platform tuned to long-running, tool-using AI agents. This narrows the gap with rival AI stacks that are building proprietary runtime layers, and positions Perplexity to optimize cost, latency, and security as agent workloads scale.
