TLDR
- Cerebras Systems (CBRS) surged 68% on its Nasdaq debut Thursday, closing at $311.07 after opening at $350 — nearly double its IPO price of $185.
- The stock hit an intraday high of $385 before volatility triggered a brief trading halt.
- The IPO raised up to $6.4 billion, making it the largest public offering of 2026 so far.
- Cerebras’ market cap crossed $66 billion on a fully diluted basis at close.
- The company has partnerships with Amazon and OpenAI, with OpenAI already running its first AI model on Cerebras chips.
Cerebras Systems made its Nasdaq debut Thursday with one of the most explosive first-day performances the market has seen in years. The AI chip maker’s stock closed at $311.07, up 68% from its IPO price of $185.
The stock opened at $350 — nearly double the offer price — and briefly hit $385 before volatility forced a temporary trading halt. By the close, the company’s fully diluted market cap sat north of $66 billion.
Demand going into the IPO was intense. Investor orders exceeded available supply by more than 20 times, according to Bloomberg. Cerebras had originally priced shares at $150 to $160, before raising both the size and price of the offering to $185.
The listing raised up to $6.4 billion, making it the biggest IPO of 2026 so far — and one that landed at exactly the right moment in the AI cycle.
What Cerebras Actually Does
Cerebras builds AI computing systems designed for fast inference — essentially helping AI models process prompts and deliver answers faster.
CEO Andrew Feldman made the company’s pitch simple on Thursday morning: “We built a chip the size of a dinner plate. It’s 58 times larger than any chip previously built.” He added the company is “more than 15 times faster than the competition.”
That competition includes Nvidia (NVDA), which itself gained 4.4% on Thursday — a sign that Cerebras’ debut lifted sentiment across the AI chip space rather than denting it.
Partnerships Already in Place
Cerebras isn’t just promising speed — it’s already delivering. The company has partnerships with Amazon (AMZN) and OpenAI.
Earlier this year, OpenAI launched its first AI model running on Cerebras chips, giving the company a real-world stamp of approval before it even hit public markets.
Those partnerships gave investors something to hang their conviction on beyond the IPO hype.
The IPO priced 30 million Class A common shares, trading under the ticker CBRS. At the intraday peak, the company’s market cap briefly crossed $100 billion on a fully diluted basis, including restricted stock, options, and warrants.
Cerebras is not the only AI name eyeing public markets. OpenAI and Anthropic are both reportedly exploring IPOs later this year.
SpaceX, which recently absorbed xAI — the maker of Grok — is also targeting a public offering in June.
For now, Thursday belonged to Cerebras. The stock’s debut broke the record for the largest IPO of the year and put the company firmly on the map as a serious Nvidia challenger.
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