Cerebras shares skyrocket in debut as AI mania grips markets
May 16, 2026 00:00:00
Shares of chip designer Cerebras Systems soared 89% above the initial public offering price on their Nasdaq debut, extending the market's unrelenting frenzy for companies seen as the biggest beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence boom, reports Reuters.
Its shares opened at $350 on Thursday, well above the IPO price of $185 apiece, where it raised $5.55 billion. The jump gives Cerebras a valuation of $106.75 billion on a fully diluted basis.

The Sunnyvale, California-based firm's IPO is the largest so far this year and comes as AI-linked stocks push broader markets to record highs despite challenges to global growth stemming from the Middle East conflict.
Founded in 2015, Cerebras sought to challenge conventional AI computing with its wafer-scale engine, designing chips roughly the size of a dinner plate to speed up processing. Unlike traditional GPU-based systems that rely on clusters of interconnected chips, it packs hundreds of thousands of compute cores onto a single processor.
"In Silicon Valley we understand just how big AI will be, and what that means," Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman told Reuters in an interview. "We make AI with training, and we use it with inference. As these models get smarter, the amount we use them will explode".
The stellar debut, however, could raise questions about whether Cerebras can continue to command its rich valuation over the longer term.
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