Cerebras IPO: shares of Nvidia's AI chip rival become available

Preliminary trading in shares of Cerebras, a developer of specialized chips for running advanced artificial intelligence models, has begun on the Freedom client trading system. Demand for the chips has surged as AI labs move from the training phase of the models to their practical operation, The Wall Street Journal reported. According to Dealogic, Cerebras' listing would be the world's largest IPO since the beginning of this year, Reuters noted. Later on Ma. 14, Cerebras securities will appear on the Nasdaq under the ticker CBRS.US.

Cerebras raised $5.55 billion in an IPO: the company offered 30 million shares at $185 per paper - well above the top end of its previously announced price range ($150-160). Based on the IPO, the entire company could be valued at $56.43 billion, making the listing the largest of the year, Reuters noted.

The company was originally going to go public with a price range of $115-125, but decided to increase it on Ma 11 as demand for shares in the AI chip maker continued to rise. It also increased the number of shares offered from 28 million to 30 million.

Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Barclays, UBS Investment Bank, Mizuho Securities and TD Securities acted as organizers for Cerebras' listing.

In the run-up to Cerebras' listing, the order book was oversubscribed more than 20 times. This came amid a global boom in AI adoption, which has turned semiconductors into a key bottleneck in the technology supply chain, Reuters emphasizes.

Cerebras had already tried to go public in 2024, but withdrew its application in 2025, Reuters reported. The reason for canceling the listing was an inspection by the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment due to the partnership with G42 from the UAE, which accounted for more than 80% of Cerebras' revenue in the first half of 2024. The latter is developing AI and is backed by sovereign wealth fund Mubadala. The committee eventually approved the deal.

Based in Sunnyvale, California, Cerebras was founded in 2015. It makes specialized chips to run advanced AI models. In the industry of training and running generative AI models (such as OpenAI's ChatGPT), GPUs from Nvidia have long been considered the standard. However, Cerebras claims its chips are faster and cheaper, CNBC emphasizes. It was the claimed high speeds that helped the company enter into an agreement with OpenAI in January 2026 for more than $20 billion - the AI giant uses Cerebras' power to run a model that writes program code, the agency adds.

Cerebras chips are focused on inference - computing that allows AI to respond to user requests, Reuters specifies. Cerebras' technological advantage lies in its unique architecture: the company creates giant chips on a single piece of silicon wafer, whose "fault-tolerant" structure allows it to effectively bypass manufacturing defects without losing performance, Morningstar analysts say. In addition, the use of fast Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) instead of standard solutions ensures the fastest possible response to requests, they specify.

Instead of focusing solely on selling hardware, Cerebras fills data centers with its own chips and provides cloud services to customers, CNBC points out. That makes it a competitor to cloud infrastructure providers, but in March 2026, market leader Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a deal to bring Cerebras chips into its data centers.

Many countries have now completed the initial training of their national models and are moving to procure the equipment to run them. Cerebras is a perfect fit for these government "sovereign AI" programs, analysts add.

Cerebras was also in the spotlight during the lawsuit filed by Tesla founder Elon Musk against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman said in court that Cerebras' designs represented exactly the kind of computing power the company needed. According to Brockman, OpenAI had discussed the possibility of a merger with Cerebras, and Musk was open to the deal, CNBC recalls.

The company is showing impressive financial momentum: while in 2024 it had a net loss of $484.8 million on revenue of $290.3 million, it has already reached a net income of $87.9 million on revenue of $510 million by the end of 2025, Cerebras said in its prospectus filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The current valuation of Cerebras at IPO implies the potential for further growth of the securities by another 13.5%: the target price is $209.9 per share, says Freedom Finance analyst Alem Bektemirov. His assessment was made before the publication of IPO results: compared to the upper boundary of the stated price range, it implied growth of another 31%.

Freedom forecasts Cerebras' revenue to grow 85 times by 2035, from $510 million to $43.4 billion. Growing demand for the company's products, the rapid development of the AI market, and rising data center infrastructure costs will be the main drivers of growth. However, in the event of lower growth rates, the company's valuation could decline, Bektemirov warned.

Investors can't seem to get enough of shares in AI infrastructure companies, which bodes well for the huge demand for the upcoming IPO of chip developer Cerebras, Morningstar analysts say. "It's striking that back in October the business was valued at $8 billion ... although major deals with OpenAI and Amazon Web Services certainly helped the cause," Morningstar senior analyst Brian Colello notes.

Cerebras finds itself in an ideal position at the current stage of the industry, as major labs such as OpenAI and Anthropic are literally elbowing each other to get the hardware they need to run AI, Morningstar strategists add. While Nvidia remains the clear growth leader, the enormous demand for AI technology is pulling the entire sector with it.

However, despite the excitement, buying Cerebras shares is fraught with serious risks, among which the fierce competition is at the forefront: Nvidia is considered the company's main rival, while tech giants like Google, Amazon and Meta are actively entering the inference market with their custom chips, analysts say. Another critical factor is the high concentration of customers, as a huge part of Cerebras' value is tied up in its deal with OpenAI. That $20 billion agreement has the character of a "ring deal," with OpenAI pledging to buy billions of dollars worth of equipment in exchange for an equity stake in Cerebras and a $1 billion loan. That dependency creates a danger: If OpenAI fails to meet its own revenue targets, it could cause demand for Cerebras' products to plummet and hurt its stock price.

Cerebras had the largest listing this year, but it will cede the lead if OpenAI, SpaceX or Anthropic goes public this year.

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Freedom clients will be able to get access to Cerebras shares before the opening of the main exchange session. Trading will begin in the early pre-market format 2-3 hours before the opening of the US exchanges (from 15:30-16:30 Astana time). To participate click on ticker CBRS.US.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor