On Thursday, Cerebral Systems (CBRS) experienced a remarkable surge of 68.2% upon its debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange. This initial public offering (IPO) has become the largest of 2026 thus far, although predictions suggest that this title might be contested if Elon Musk’s SpaceX also goes public this year.
Here’s what investors should keep in mind.
Cerebras Systems IPO
The IPO price for Cerebras was $185, and it opened at $350, indicating significant demand. By the end of Thursday, the stock closed at $311.07, marking a 68.2% increase from the starting price.
The company issued 30 million shares at the IPO price, which brought in about $5.55 billion.
After Thursday’s trading, Cerebras had a market capitalization of just under $67 billion, based on 215.23 million shares outstanding.
What does Cerebras Systems do?
Cerebras Systems is rapidly emerging in the AI chip market, with notable clients like OpenAI, Amazon, and Meta. It is frequently mentioned as a competitor to Nvidia, a leading name in AI chips, and is definitely on track to be a serious contender.
The company emphasizes that its wafer-scale AI chips, created using an entire silicon wafer, deliver faster AI inference capabilities compared to rivals, including Nvidia. This stage of AI, known as inference, follows the training phase and is crucial for deploying AI applications. Analysts expect the AI inference market to outpace the AI training market in terms of growth, making it particularly appealing.
Cerebras’ AI supercomputers include the CS-2 and CS-3 models, featuring the WSE-3 AI processors. These systems can be either purchased outright or accessed on a rental basis through the company’s cloud services.
Growing revenues but an operating loss
Cerebras has seen its revenue skyrocket from $24.6 million in 2022 to $78.7 million in 2023, and further to $290.3 million in 2024, a tenfold increase over three years, according to SEC filings. For 2025, revenue reached $510 million, up 76% year-over-year and primarily driven by hardware and cloud service growth.
Comparing Cerebras’ 2025 revenue to Nvidia, which reported a revenue of $215.9 billion in fiscal 2026—an increase of 65%—Cerebras did grow slightly faster relative to its size, but it’s worth noting that Nvidia’s annual revenue was significantly larger.
In 2025, Cerebras posted an operating loss of $145.9 million, largely due to steep research and development expenditures, which comprised 48% of its annual sales. However, it did report a positive net income for that year, primarily influenced by favorable changes in asset valuation.
Conversely, while Cerebras had a negative operating cash flow of $10.1 million in 2025, it wasn’t too far from break-even.
Cerebras’ market cap in context
Given the current momentum, Cerebras’ stock price might continue to rise, which could further elevate its market capitalization. For comparison, its $67 billion market cap at Thursday’s close is dwarfed by the following leading semiconductor companies:
- NVIDIA: $5.7 trillion
- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC): $2.2 trillion
- Broadcom: $2.1 trillion
- Micron Technology: $875 million
- Advanced Micro Devices (AMD): $733 million
Potential inclusion in major market indexes
There’s a possibility that Cerebras stock will be added to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 indexes, as the smallest stock in the S&P 500 had a market cap of $4.7 billion as of mid-May, and the smallest in the Nasdaq-100 was $13 billion. Inclusion in these indexes typically drives stock prices up due to the resultant buying pressure from mutual funds and ETFs.
Final thoughts
To conclude, I’d like to reiterate a sentiment from my earlier article on Cerebras: all indications suggest that this stock is worth monitoring—or at the very least, considering.
