Nvidia challenger Cerebras plans to go public at a valuation of $40 billion, but the real engine behind it is TSMC’s 5-nanometer process

AI chip startup Cerebras Systems will list on Nasdaq, with the stock ticker CBRS. Bloomberg said Cerebras has launched its IPO roadshow, with a target offering price range of $115 to $125 per share. The fundraise could be as high as $4 billion, with a target valuation of about $40 billion, making it one of this year’s most closely watched new stocks in the AI infrastructure and semiconductor markets.

TSMC is also a key manufacturing partner for Cerebras. If Cerebras successfully lists at a $40 billion valuation, while TSMC may not be a financial investor, it is one of the most critical manufacturing infrastructure behind this “Nvidia challenger.”

Cerebras’ customers include OpenAI, AWS

The market views Cerebras as a potential challenger to Nvidia in the AI chip market. Unlike Nvidia’s focus on GPUs, Cerebras’ core technology is the “Wafer-Scale Engine” (WSE): instead of cutting a silicon wafer into multiple die and then packaging them like traditional chips, it turns an entire silicon wafer into a single ultra-large AI processor.

The company’s current flagship systems include CS-2 and CS-3. Its latest generation core chip is WSE-3. Cerebras claims this is the “world’s largest and fastest AI processor.”

Cerebras’ listing story hinges on the fact that it is not only selling chips—it is trying to provide a full AI computing platform. On one hand, the company sells AI supercomputer systems to customers; on the other, it also offers cloud inference services, allowing developers and enterprises to use Cerebras computing power on a usage-based payment model. This makes its positioning closer to an “AI infrastructure provider,” rather than simply a chip design company.

The customer drawing the most attention is OpenAI. Cerebras and OpenAI announced a multi-year partnership in January this year. OpenAI will deploy 750MW of Cerebras wafer-scale systems for high-speed, low-latency AI inference, with deployments to be rolled out in phases starting in 2026. OpenAI has also said the collaboration will add 750MW of ultra-low-latency AI computing power to its platform, enabling real-time AI applications like ChatGPT to respond faster.

Besides OpenAI, Cerebras has also secured Amazon AWS. Based on related information from its listing documents, Cerebras has signed binding term sheets with AWS and plans to integrate Cerebras CS-3 hardware into Amazon Bedrock’s managed inference service. This means Cerebras will rely less only on a small number of Middle East customers and is starting to gain endorsement from major U.S. cloud platforms.

Cerebras still faces losses and has not converted to steady profitability

However, the most questioned issue by investors is customer concentration. The listing documents show that Cerebras revenue in 2025 was $510 million, higher than $290.3 million in 2024; but among that, Abu Dhabi AI company G42 contributed 24%, while another Abu Dhabi customer MBZUAI contributed 62%, and together they accounted for as much as 86% of 2025 revenue. This means that even if G42’s share fell from 85% in 2024, Cerebras’ revenue is still highly dependent on a small number of large customers.

On the financial side, Cerebras’ growth rate is quite striking. Reuters reported that Cerebras’ 2025 revenue rose to $510 million from $290.3 million the prior year; earnings per share also shifted from a 2024 EPS loss of $9.90 to a 2025 EPS profit of $1.38.

But if you break it down, the quality of Cerebras’ profitability still needs to be watched. Tom’s Hardware, citing its listing documents, said Cerebras still had $145.9 million in operating losses in 2025. The accounting profit that year mainly came from accounting gains of about $363 million, rather than core operations turning into stable profitability. In other words, Cerebras’ revenue is genuinely growing at a rapid pace, but it still has some distance before it can consistently earn money through its core business.

This article “Nvidia challenger Cerebras plans to list at a $40 billion valuation” appears behind it still at the earliest on Chain News ABMedia.