Artificial intelligence chip maker Cerebra Systems has priced its IPO at $185 per share, above expectations, as investors brace for what is expected to be a very busy year with new AI products.
The IPO brought in $5.55 billion for Cerebras, which sold 30 million shares, according to a statement Wednesday. The underwriters have an option to purchase an additional 4.5 million shares.
The company is entering the market in the midst of a silicon renaissance. intel, advanced micro device and memory maker micron Each is up more than 80% over the past month, and has posted even more dramatic gains over the past year as investors diversify their chip bets. Nvidia To the wider world of semiconductor companies currently benefiting from the AI boom.
Cerebras’ product is one of the largest high-tech IPOs in recent years. Uber raised about $8 billion in 2019, making it the largest funding for a U.S. technology company since then. snowflake’s Its 2020 initial public offering brought in more than $3.8 billion. Expanding to automobile and electric vehicle manufacturers Rivian In 2021, it raised approximately $12 billion.
At its IPO price, Cerebras is now worth $56.4 billion on a fully diluted basis. Cerebras co-founder and CEO Andrew Feldman owns approximately $1.9 billion worth of stock.
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Silicon Valley, Cerebras has faced a difficult path to reach the Nasdaq market, which trades under the ticker symbol CBRS.
Cerebras filed to go public in September 2024, but withdrew the filing more than a year later after its prospectus came under intense scrutiny, largely because of the company’s heavy reliance on G42, a single customer in the United Arab Emirates backed by Microsoft.
Cerebras had begun to shift its focus from selling hardware systems to offering cloud services based on its chips. This means you will be competing with cloud providers such as: google and microsoftboth listed as competitors along with Oracle and CoreWeave.
Cerebras said in its updated prospectus that 24% of its revenue last year came from G42, down from 85% in 2024. But last year, the UAE’s Mohammed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence accounted for 62% of the revenue.
Cerebras scored a big win in January when it signed a deal with OpenAI worth more than $20 billion for 750 megawatts of Cerebras computing capacity. Cerebras claims its Wafer Scale Engine 3 chips offer speed and price advantages over graphics processing units from the likes of Nvidia.
Cerebras announced on May 4 that it plans to sell 28 million shares at a price of $115 to $125 per share. A week later, Cerebras raised its offering to $30 million and raised its expected range to $150 to $160.
Bloomberg reported earlier Wednesday, citing unnamed sources, weeks before Cerebra’s IPO: arm and Softbank Both tried to get it. Mr. Cerebras declined to comment.
According to testimony in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI, OpenAI considered merging with Cerebra in 2017, seeing the chip company as potentially beneficial in its pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI).
“Exclusive access to Cerebras hardware gives OpenAI a significant hardware advantage over Google,” Greg Brockman, co-founder and president of OpenAI, said in an email.
Brockman owned about 78,000 shares of Cerebra stock at the end of 2025, worth $14.4 million at the IPO price, according to the lawsuit filing. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman owned about 89,000 shares of Cerebra stock as of Dec. 31, according to lawsuit filings. The stock is now worth approximately $16.5 million.
Other investors in Cerebras include Fidelity, which has a stake worth about $3.8 billion, and Benchmark, which has a stake worth about $3.3 billion. Foundation Capital’s stake is valued at $2.8 billion, while Eclipse holds a $2.5 billion stake.
The lead underwriter of the IPO is as follows. morgan stanley, citygroup, barclays and UBS.
—CNBC’s Kristina Partinevelos contributed to this report.
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