Perplexity is making SPACE open-source. This is the sandbox platform on which Computer has been running since July. It provides developers a production-tested foundation for running AI agents in isolated environments. This includes isolation, recovery, and control over credentials and network access.
During Computer sessions, SPACE already generates millions of new sandboxes per day. Previously, Perplexity used a commercial sandbox provider, which it has now replaced with this in-house solution. According to the company, in a comparison under the same production traffic, a sandbox was deployed three to five times faster than with the previous provider.
SPACE forms the foundation of Perplexity Computer. The company released that system in February, and it converts a task into a multi-step workflow. Specialized subagents conduct research, write code, and process data as part of this process. Each task runs in its own workspace with a browser, a file system, and access to tools.
Why would you give away such a platform? Perplexity calls agent governance “an engineering problem, and open source is essential to solving it.” The company says people who can inspect and modify a system are more likely to find vulnerabilities.
Each sandbox has its own operating system
Each SPACE sandbox runs in a small virtual machine with its own operating system. This creates an isolation boundary between the agent’s work and the host system. A central control plane determines when workspaces are created, paused, resumed, or deleted. SPACE treats the sandbox itself as untrusted. Network access and credentials are therefore managed outside the sandbox, so that agents can work with authorized services without having login credentials in their working environment.
Progress is also preserved. Snapshots and checkpoints of the entire environment survive interruptions. SPACE stores only changes, so it doesn’t constantly copy the entire environment. This allows an agent to pause until a user has reviewed a draft, or to test two methods for cleaning a dataset side by side in separate copies.
SPACE does not stand alone. Through the Secure Intelligence Institute, Perplexity previously released BrowseSafe, as well as the Bumblebee scanner (May) and the Numbat toolkit (July). Partners are also on board. Akamai has tested SPACE and launched it on its cloud platform, and Crusoe is incorporating it into its Managed AI Services. CoreWeave has published a guide on running SPACE on CKS for evaluation.