Nvidia (NVDA) rival Cerebras Techniques is eyeing one other shot at going public, and this time, the timing appears deliberate.
In response to Reuters, the AI chip startup is about to refile for a U.S. IPO as early as subsequent week, with a goal debut in Q2 2026.
What’s attention-grabbing is that the eye-opening transfer comes months after Cerebras pulled its earlier submitting. The choice was based mostly on a nationwide safety evaluation linked to a overseas investor, together with rising scrutiny on the place U.S. AI expertise finally ends up.
To be honest, this isn’t a narrative that’s unfamiliar in any manner.
You’ve gotten one other fast-growing AI semiconductor enterprise that’s seeking to capitalize on surging demand. Nevertheless, with Cerebras, the image will get barely extra difficult.
The financials we’ve seen are dated, and the corporate’s progress seems to be closely concentrated in a single buyer, with a regulatory backdrop that is still unclear.
So, this IPO hinges much less on intelligent chip design and extra on whether or not public-market traders are comfy with the dangers that include it.
Nvidia rival quietly strains up for a 2026 debut
Photograph by I-HWA CHENG on Getty Pictures
Cerebras isn’t simply one other GPU firm
Cerebras takes a extra novel method than Nvidia does with its GPUs.
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As a substitute of linking hundreds of chips, it develops a single, wafer-scale processor, which is basically one large chip, that’s concerning the measurement of an dinner plate.
In doing so, its newest WSE-3 packs fairly the punch, with almost 4 trillion transistors and 900,000 cores onto a single piece of silicon.
That offers Cerebras a major edge, particularly in dealing with large AI fashions that may be educated on a single system or unfold seamlessly throughout a number of GPUs, thereby decreasing complexity and bottlenecks.
That design prioritizes much less versatility and extra strong efficiency.
Cerebras’ IPO is coming again with a much bigger price ticket
Cerebras Techniques is seemingly on the point of take a look at the general public markets once more.
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In response to Reuters, the AI chip startup is concentrating on a Q2 2026 debut, because it appears to journey the red-hot demand for specialised AI silicon.
It’s vital to notice that it is a comeback try.
Cerebras withdrew its earlier IPO submitting in late 2025, following a whopping $1+ billion funding spherical with U.S. national-security opinions linked to Abu Dhabi’s G42.
Now it is coming again with a bang and concentrating on a a lot increased value. Cerebras was valued at a large $8 billion in 2024, and reviews counsel that the valuation has “nearly doubled” since, with IPO dialogue transferring into the tens of billions.
What traders can be weighing:
- Whether or not the G42 evaluation is behind the corporate.
- If “tens of billions” is a justified price ticket for an unproven area of interest AI {hardware} participant.
- What the IPO alerts about AI investing, even when Nvidia’s lead stays intact.
The complication behind Cerebras’ IPO plans
Cerebras’ deliberate IPO hasn’t been with out its controversies.
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Entrance and heart is its connection to the G42, with the Abu Dhabi–based mostly AI agency investing a large $335 million, resulting in a U.S. national-security evaluation.
The considerations had been primarily as a result of using non-U.S. intermediaries to route superior American AI expertise towards China.
Reuters particularly pointed to considerations over G42’s hyperlinks with Huawei previously, and the evaluation performed a important function in delaying Cerebras’ IPO plans.
Additionally, G42 was Cerebras’ major buyer.
Within the first half of 2024, Cerebras reported $136.4 million in gross sales, skyrocketing 1,474% 12 months over 12 months.
Nevertheless, almost $119.1 million, or 87%, got here from G42. Furthermore, the corporate disclosed that reductions linked to G42’s high-volume orders weighed down gross margin to 41.1% from 50.5%.
Since then, although, Cerebras has obtained CFIUS clearance, and G42 is now not listed as an investor, a change that ought to show important when we’ve the most recent financials.
Nvidia nonetheless leads regardless of rising competitors
Nvidia nonetheless dominates the AI accelerator market, with an estimated 80–90% share.
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Nevertheless, the scale of the chance continues to attract challengers from nearly each nook of the tech house.
Established chipmakers and cloud giants proceed to hunt options as clients search larger diversification when it comes to provide and price.
- AMD is clearly essentially the most credible near-term rival, led by its potent MI300 and upcoming MI400 accelerators, supercharged by offers from OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta Platforms.
- Intel is seeking to re-enter the race and make its mark with Gaudi2, together with its future Falcon Shores platform.
- Qualcomm can also be planning to launch data-center AI accelerators in 2026–27, whereas hyperscalers like Google, Amazon, and Meta are additionally constructing in-house chips to scale back their reliance on Nvidia.
On high of that, China has mounted a response too, on the again of tariffs and different export controls. Startups, together with Moore Threads, Biren Expertise, and Cambricon Applied sciences, are all seeking to change Nvidia domestically, whereas Huawei, Baidu, and Alibaba are manufacturing customized silicon.
Europe’s cautionary story is Graphcore, which was as soon as valued at a whopping $2.8 billion earlier than being acquired by SoftBank for almost £400 million again in 2024.
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