If there’s a signal about the state of the AI chips market, look no further than today’s results from Cerebras Systems.
The maker of wafer-size chips for AI processing reported GAAP quarterly revenue of $193.4 million and core revenue of $191.3 million, up 92% from a year ago.
But the company also reported a $14 million net loss in the quarter, compared with a net loss of $23.8 million in the same quarter a year ago. In its IPO, Cerebras raised $6.4 billion in the second quarter in the largest semiconductor IPO of all time. During the March quarter, Cerebras also announced a multi-year deal with OpenAI for 750 megawatts of chip infrastructure valued at more than $20 billion and it also launched a multi-year partnership with Amazon to bring Cerebras’ fast inference to AWS.
Cerebras competes with Nvidia, the maker of graphics processing units (GPUs) and AI processors, but instead of competing on a chip level with Nvidia, Cerebras designs its solutions on the wafer level, which is the size of a 12-inch diameter wave that could normally hold dozens or even hundreds of chips. Cerebras figures one of its chips is about 58 times bigger than a GPU.
“This was an outstanding start to 2026 for Cerebras. And we are proud of our achievements,” said Andrew Feldman, Cerebras CEO, in a statement. “AI has moved from being a novelty to being useful and productive. Cerebras’ wafer-scale technology delivers the fastest AI in the world. And fast AI is more valuable than slow AI because it is more productive. It provides answers in less time. It delivers solutions in less time. This in turn has created significant momentum with pioneering customers like OpenAI and AWS and emerging customers as well. The growing importance of AI in our economy requires AI infrastructure that can power the most advanced applications at unprecedented speed. This is the Cerebras mission.”
“Our strong financial performance in Q1 highlights the large and rapidly growing opportunity in front of us,” said Bob Komin, Cerebras CFO, in a statement. “We are focused on innovating at the pace of demand, supporting accelerating investments in growth and capitalization on strategic opportunities while effectively managing our capital structure.”
Cerebras said it raised $6.4 billion in gross proceeds through its IPO, in addition to the $1 billion Series H pre-IPO financing closed in February and the $1 billion working capital loan from OpenAI in January. Also, in April, Cerebras closed a revolving credit facility for up to $850 million from a broad syndicate of investment banks to further support the company’s strategy to accelerate the pace of our data center acquisitions.
1Q 2026 Financial Highlights
- GAAP revenue of $193.4 million, up 13% sequentially and up 94% year-over-year
- Hardware revenue of $110.6 million, up 59% year-over-year
- Cloud and other services revenue of $82.8 million, up 178% year-over-year
- GAAP gross margin of 45%
- GAAP hardware gross margins of 41%
- GAAP cloud and other services gross margins of 49%
- GAAP loss from operations of $15.0 million
- GAAP net loss of $14.0 million
- Cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, and short-term investments of $3.3 billion
Core Financial Results are all non-GAAP metrics (and exclude the impact of amortization of customer warrants, data center pass-through revenues and costs, stock-based compensation, and certain other items):
- Core total revenue of $191.3 million, up 12% sequentially and up 92% year-over-year
- Core hardware revenue of $111.6 million, up 60% year-over-year
- Core cloud and other services revenue of $79.8 million, up 167% year-over-year
- Core gross margin of 47%
- Core hardware gross margins of 42%
- Core cloud and other services gross margins of 53%
- Core operating loss of $3.5 million
- Core net loss of $2.5 million
Q2 2026 Financial Outlook
- Core Non-GAAP Financial Outlook:
- Core revenue of approximately $194.0 million, up 88% year-over-year
- Core gross margin in the range of 36 – 38%
- Core operating margins in the range of (30) to (32)%
Full Year Fiscal 2026 Financial Outlook
Core Non-GAAP Financial Outlook:
- Core revenue of $855.0 to 865.0 million, up 69% year-over-year at the midpoint
- Core gross margin in the range of 38 – 41%
- Core operating margins in the range of (28) to (32)%