Cerebras files for IPO as AI listing wave gathers momentum

Cerebras Systems moved to the public markets on Thursday with a filing that turns one of Silicon Valley’s most closely watched AI chipmakers into a live test of investor appetite for the hardware behind the boom. The Sunnyvale company said it planned to list on Nasdaq under the ticker CBRS, but it did not disclose how many shares it would sell or the price range.

The filing arrives as a wave of oversized AI and space listings begins to build around companies such as SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI. For Cerebras, the question is bigger than one offering price. Public investors will have to decide whether the market’s enthusiasm for AI software also extends to the capital-heavy businesses that build the chips, servers and data-center capacity needed to run it.

Cerebras’ numbers give it a stronger case than it had during its first run at the market. The company reported $510 million in revenue in 2025, up nearly 76% from 2024, and net income of $87.9 million, a sharp reversal from a $481.6 million net loss the year before. That rebound matters because chipmaking is expensive by design: the business demands huge upfront spending before revenue can catch up, and investors have long punished hardware makers that cannot scale fast enough.

The earlier IPO attempt, in 2024, was withdrawn after a U.S. national-security review tied to G42, the Abu Dhabi AI firm that is both an investor and a major customer. Cerebras had disclosed that G42 accounted for 87% of revenue in the first half of 2024, a concentration level that raised obvious concerns about dependence on one buyer. By 2025, that share had fallen to 24%, showing some diversification even as one customer still looms large.

Cerebras has also moved closer to OpenAI, the company that has become the central force in the AI infrastructure race. In December 2025, Cerebras issued OpenAI warrants to buy up to 33.4 million shares of non-voting Class N stock. In January 2026, OpenAI provided Cerebras with a $1 billion loan to help build data-center infrastructure and provide services. The companies have also struck a much larger commercial relationship, with OpenAI agreeing to pay Cerebras more than $20 billion over three years for chip-powered servers, a deal that could also give OpenAI an equity stake.

That combination of growth, dependence and massive capital needs makes Cerebras more than another debut. It is a referendum on whether public markets are ready to reward the companies supplying the computing backbone of the AI economy.