Model reference · open weights

pplx-embed-context

Available as managed deployment Embeddings perplexity-ai Embeddings 2 variants 34k dl/mo

pplx-embed-context is an open-weight embedding model from perplexity-ai. AxForge deploys and operates it for you on dedicated EU-owned hardware — with the licence handled where one is required.

Available as managed deployment — configured and operated for you on dedicated EU hardware, quoted per deployment.

What it is

Released byperplexity-ai
TypeEmbedding models
TaskEmbeddings
Parameters (lead)4.0B
Context32k tokens
Runs withtransformers
Released2026-01-20
Popularity34k downloads / month
LicenceOpen weights

About

What pplx-embed-context is

pplx-embed-v1 and pplx-embed-context-v1 are state-of-the-art text embedding models optimized for real-world, web-scale retrieval tasks.

  • Use pplx-embed-v1 for independent text embedding (queries, documents, semantic search)
  • Use pplx-embed-context-v1 for document chunks in RAG systems where surrounding context matters

[!IMPORTANT] pplx-embed-v1 and pplx-embed-context-v1 natively produce unnormalized int8-quantized embeddings. Ensure that you compare them via cosine similarity.

Read the full model card

Models

ModelDimensionsContextMRLQuantizationInstructionPooling
pplx-embed-v1-0.6B102432KYesINT8/BINARYNoMean
pplx-embed-v1-4B256032KYesINT8/BINARYNoMean
pplx-embed-context-v1-0.6B102432KYesINT8/BINARYNoMean
pplx-embed-context-v1-4B256032KYesINT8/BINARYNoMean

Usage

curl -X POST https://api.perplexity.ai/v1/contextualizedembeddings \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "input": [
      [
        "Curiosity begins in childhood with endless questions about the world.",
        "As we grow, curiosity drives us to explore new ideas and challenge assumptions.",
        "Scientific breakthroughs often start with a simple curious question."
      ],
      [
        "The curiosity rover explores Mars, searching for signs of ancient life.",
        "Each discovery on Mars sparks new questions about our place in the universe."
      ]
    ],
    "model": "pplx-embed-context-v1-4b"
  }'
from transformers import AutoModel

model_ctx = AutoModel.from_pretrained(
    "perplexity-ai/pplx-embed-context-v1-4B",
    trust_remote_code=True
)

doc_chunks = [
    [
        "Curiosity begins in childhood with endless questions about the world.",
        "As we grow, curiosity drives us to explore new ideas.",
        "Scientific breakthroughs often start with a curious question."
    ],
    [
        "The curiosity rover explores Mars searching for ancient life.",
        "Each discovery on Mars sparks new questions about the universe."
    ]
]
# Returns list of numpy arrays (one per document)
# embeddings[0].shape = (3, 1024), embeddings[1].shape = (2, 1024)
embeddings = model_ctx.encode(doc_chunks)

import onnxruntime as ort
from transformers import AutoTokenizer
import numpy as np
import torch

def quantize_int8_tanh(x):
    normalized = torch.tanh(x)
    rounded = torch.round(normalized * 127)
    clamped = torch.clamp(rounded, -128, 127)
    return clamped

def quantize_binary(x):
    return torch.where(x >= 0, 1.0, -1.0)

def mean_pooling(
    token_embeddings: torch.Tensor, attention_mask: torch.Tensor
) -> torch.Tensor:
    """Apply mean pooling to token embeddings."""
    input_mask_expanded = (
        attention_mask.unsqueeze(-1).expand(token_embeddings.size()).float()
    )
    return torch.sum(token_embeddings * input_mask_expanded, 1) / torch.clamp(
        input_mask_expanded.sum(1), min=1e-9
    )

def extract_chunks_from_concatenated(
    input_ids: torch.Tensor,
    token_embeddings: torch.Tensor,
    attention_mask: torch.Tensor,
    tokenizer,
) -> list[list[torch.Tensor]]:
    """
    Extract individual chunk embeddings from concatenated sequence using late chunking.

    This method splits concatenated sequences like "[chunk1][SEP][chunk2][SEP]..."
    back into individual chunk embeddings by finding SEP token positions.

    Args:
        input_ids: Token IDs (batch_size, seq_len)
        token_embeddings: Token embeddings (batch_size, seq_len, hidden_dim)
        attention_mask: Attention mask (batch_size, seq_len)

    Returns:
        list[list[torch.Tensor]]: List of documents, each containing list of chunk embeddings

    Note:
        The sep_token_id is retrieved tokenizer.sep_token_id.
        Common values: pplx-embed-1=151643, BERT=102, varies by tokenizer.
    """
    sep_token_id = tokenizer.sep_token_id
    batch_size = input_ids.shape[0]

    all_doc_chunks = []

    for batch_idx in range(batch_size):
        # non-pad sep tokens
        valid_positions = attention_mask[batch_idx].bool()
        sep_positions = (
            (input_ids[batch_idx] == sep_token_id) & valid_positions
        ).nonzero(as_tuple=True)[0]

        chunk_embeddings = []
        start_pos = 0

        for sep_pos in sep_positions:
            chunk_tokens = token_embeddings[batch_idx, start_pos:sep_pos]
            chunk_mask = attention_mask[batch_idx, start_pos:sep_pos]

            chunk_emb = mean_pooling(
                chunk_tokens.unsqueeze(0), chunk_mask.unsqueeze(0)
            ).squeeze(0)

            chunk_embeddings.append(chunk_emb)

            start_pos = sep_pos + 1

        # Handle the last chunk (after the last SEP token)
        last_valid_pos = attention_mask[batch_idx].sum().item()

        chunk_tokens = token_embeddings[batch_idx, start_pos:last_valid_pos]
        chunk_mask = attention_mask[batch_idx, start_pos:last_valid_pos]

        if chunk_mask.sum() > 0:
            chunk_emb = mean_pooling(
                chunk_tokens.unsqueeze(0), chunk_mask.unsqueeze(0)
            ).squeeze(0)
        else:
            # Empty chunk - create zero embedding
            chunk_emb = torch.zeros(
                token_embeddings.shape[-1],
                device=token_embeddings.device,
                dtype=token_embeddings.dtype,
            )

        chunk_embeddings.append(chunk_emb)

        all_doc_chunks.append(chunk_embeddings)

    return all_doc_chunks

hf_path=("perplexity-ai/pplx-embed-context-v1-4b")
onnx_path=("onnx/model.onnx")

tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained(hf_path, trust_remote_code=True)
session = ort.InferenceSession(onnx_path)

texts = [
    [
        "Curiosity begins in childhood with endless questions about the world.",
        "As we grow, cu

From the published model card. Full card on the HuggingFace links in the sidebar.

Using it via the API

Call it like any OpenAI endpoint

Once AxForge deploys pplx-embed-context for you, it answers on the OpenAI-compatible API — the same base URL and keys as every other model. (pplx-embed-context below is illustrative; you get the exact model name on deployment.)

$ curl -sS https://api.axforge.ai/v1/embeddings \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AXFORGE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model":"pplx-embed-context","input":"text to embed"}'

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