AI chipmaker Cerebras targets $26.6 billion valuation in IPO

On Monday, Cerebras Systems announced it is preparing to sell 28 million shares at a price range of $115 to $125 a share. The initial public offering (IPO) would raise $3.5 billion and give the company a $26.6 billion market cap at the high end. This represents a valuation increase from its Series H funding round in February, which raised $1 billion at a $23 billion valuation. The company previously planned to launch its IPO in 2024 but delayed those plans following a federal review of an investment from Abu Dhabi-based cloud provider G42. Prior to these rounds, Cerebras reached an $8.1 billion post-money valuation in September.

Cerebras offers an AI-specific chip called the Wafer-Scale Engine 3, which challenges GPU-based AI chips. The company states its chip is faster for inference—the compute needed to process user prompts—while using less power than competitors. A broad group of institutional and angel investors stands to benefit from the listing.

Notable investors in Cerebras include:

• Institutional shareholders with more than a 5% stake: Alpha Wave, Benchmark, Eclipse, Fidelity, and Foundation Capital.
• Other institutional backers: 1789 Capital, Abu Dhabi Growth Fund, Abu Dhabi’s G42, Altimeter, AMD, Atreides Management, Coatue, Moore Strategic Ventures, Tiger Global, Valor Equity Partners, and VY Capital.
• Angel investors: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, Adam D’Angelo, Andy Bechtolsheim, and Lip-Bu Tan.

The chipmaker’s relationship with OpenAI is a central element of its S-1 (an SEC filing document for the IPO). In December, OpenAI loaned Cerebras $1 billion, secured by warrants that allow OpenAI to buy over 33 million shares. This relationship was even presented as evidence by Elon Musk in his lawsuit with OpenAI. Legal filings from Musk’s attorneys claim OpenAI had considered acquiring Cerebras, and that Musk was unaware of personal investments in the chipmaker by OpenAI executives.

Investor demand for the offering appears robust. According to Bloomberg, banks are currently fielding $10 billion worth of orders for the $3.5 billion worth of shares on offer. This level of demand indicates the company will likely price its shares even higher than the announced range.

Why it matters

Should Cerebras pull off an initial public offering at or above the high end, this will be the largest tech IPO of 2026 so far. It could also prove the appetite for other major tech listings in the wings, such as SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic.