On Monday, artificial intelligence chip startup Cerebras Systems submitted its prospectus for an initial public offering, intending to trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "CBRS. " Cerebras competes with Nvidia, whose graphics processing units are widely regarded as the industry's preferred choice for training and executing AI models. According to its website, Cerebras asserts that its WSE-3 chip features more cores and memory compared to Nvidia's well-known H100 and is also larger in size. Alongside chip sales, Cerebras offers cloud-based services utilizing its own computing clusters. As per the filing, Cerebras experienced a net loss of $66. 6 million during the first half of 2024, with sales reaching $136. 4 million. In the same period of 2023, the company reported a net loss of $77. 8 million with just $8. 7 million in sales. For the entire year of 2023, Cerebras recorded a net loss of $127. 2 million against revenues of $78. 7 million. In the second quarter alone, the company reported a net loss of $50. 9 million on revenues of $69. 8 million, contrasting with a net loss of $26. 2 million and $5. 7 million in revenue during the same quarter the previous year. The rise in operating expenses this year has been partially driven by increased personnel costs to support revenue growth. The AI chip market is growing and becoming increasingly competitive, with cloud giants Amazon, Google, and Microsoft developing their own AI chips. Cerebras noted that Group 42, a UAE-based AI company backed by Microsoft, accounted for 83% of its revenue last year. In addition to Nvidia, the company considers AMD, Intel, Microsoft, and Google as competitors, along with custom application-specific integrated circuits developed internally and various private firms. Cerebras chips are manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. The company cautioned investors that any potential supply chain disruptions could negatively impact its operations. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, Cerebras was co-founded by Andrew Feldman, who previously sold the server startup SeaMicro to AMD for $355 million in 2012. In 2021, the company announced a valuation exceeding $4 billion following a $250 million funding round.

According to the filing, in May, G42 committed to ordering $1. 43 billion in products from Cerebras before March 2025. G42 currently holds less than 5% of Cerebras' Class A shares and has the option to acquire more based on its purchases. The technology IPO landscape has been relatively quiet in 2024, as rising interest rates have led investors to focus on profitable assets. Notable public offerings this year include social media platform Reddit in March and data management software company Rubrik in April. Earlier this month, the Federal Reserve implemented its first rate cut since 2020, leading to improvements in the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index. Prominent tech investment banks Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are not involved in this offering, with Citigroup and Barclays taking the lead. The largest investor in Cerebras is venture capital firm Foundation Capital, followed by Benchmark and Eclipse Ventures. Other significant investors include Alpha Wave, Coatue, and Altimeter, each holding at least 5%. Notably, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim are also investors, while Andrew Feldman is the sole individual with a stake of 5% or more. WATCH: Cerebras CEO: Our inference offering is 20 times faster than Nvidia's and offered at a fraction of the price.