Aug 12 (Reuters) - Perplexity AI said it has made a

$34.5 billion unsolicited all-cash offer for Alphabet's

Chrome browser, a low but bold bid that would need

financing well above the startup's own valuation.

Run by Aravind Srinivas, Perplexity is no stranger to

headline-grabbing offers - it made a similar one for TikTok US

in January, offering to merge with the popular short-video app

to resolve U.S. concerns about TikTok's Chinese ownership.

Buying Chrome would allow the startup to tap the browser's

more than three billion users for an edge in the AI search race

as regulatory pressure threatens Google's grip on the industry.

Google did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for

comment. The company has not offered Chrome for sale and plans

to appeal a U.S. court ruling last year that found it held an

unlawful monopoly in online search. The Justice Department has

sought a Chrome divestiture as part of the case's remedies.

Perplexity did not disclose on Tuesday how it plans to fund

the offer. The three-year-old company has raised around $1

billion in funding so far from investors including Nvidia ( NVDA ) and

Japan's SoftBank. It was last valued at $14 billion.

Multiple funds have offered to finance the deal in full, a

person familiar with the matter said, without naming the funds.

As a new generation of users turns to chatbots such as

ChatGPT and Perplexity for answers, web browsers are regaining

prominence as vital gateways to search traffic and prized user

data, making them central to Big Tech's AI ambitions.

Perplexity already has an AI browser, Comet, that can

perform certain tasks on a user's behalf and acquiring Chrome

would give it the heft to better compete against bigger rivals

such as OpenAI. The ChatGPT parent has also expressed interest

in buying Chrome and is working on its own AI browser.

Perplexity's bid pledges to keep the underlying browser code

called Chromium open source, invest $3 billion over two years

and make no changes to Chrome's default search engine, according

to a term sheet seen by Reuters.

The company said the offer, with no equity component, would

preserve user choice and ease future competition concerns.

Analysts have said Google would be unlikely to sell Chrome

and would likely engage in a long legal fight to prevent that

outcome, given it is crucial to the company's AI push as it

rolls out features including AI-generated search summaries,

known as Overviews, to help defend its search market share.

A federal judge is expected to issue a ruling on remedies in

the Google search antitrust case sometime this month.

Perplexity's bid is also below the at least $50 billion

value that rival search engine DuckDuckGo's CEO, Gabriel

Weinberg, suggested Chrome may command if Google was forced to

sell it.

Besides OpenAI and Perplexity, Yahoo and private-equity firm

Apollo Global Management have also expressed interest in Chrome.

(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika

Syamnath)