Cerebras Systems reported 92% year-over-year growth in core revenue for the first quarter of 2026, marking the AI chipmaker’s first earnings report as a public company following its blockbuster May IPO. Core revenue reached $191.3 million in the quarter ended March 31, 2026, up from $99.5 million in the same period last year, according to the company’s earnings release on June 23.
The strong results underscore investor appetite for AI infrastructure companies at a time when demand for specialized chips to power artificial intelligence workloads continues to accelerate. Cerebras priced its initial public offering at $185 per share on May 13, 2026, and opened at $350 the next day—an 89% surge that made it the largest semiconductor IPO of 2026, raising $6.4 billion in gross proceeds.
Cerebras’ growth reflects a diversifying customer base beyond its historical reliance on a single buyer. In June, the company announced a multi-year deal with OpenAI valued at more than $20 billion under which OpenAI will deploy 750 megawatts of Cerebras’ high-speed inference compute over several years. The company also launched a multi-year partnership with Amazon Web Services to distribute Cerebras’ fast inference capabilities globally, with AWS handling the prefill phase of AI model processing while Cerebras handles the inference decode phase.
Hardware revenue grew 59% year-over-year to $110.6 million, while cloud and other services revenue surged 178% to $82.8 million, demonstrating momentum in Cerebras’ shift toward cloud-based offerings. The company’s gross margin expanded to 45% on a GAAP basis, with core gross margin at 47%, reflecting improved operational leverage as the company scales.
Cerebras’ rapid scaling stands out in a semiconductor industry that saw global sales rise 93.9% from April 2025 to April 2026, according to U.S. News reporting on industry data. The company’s 2025 full-year revenue of $510 million represented 76% growth from $290 million in 2024, setting the stage for continued acceleration. For full-year 2026, Cerebras guided for core revenue between $855 million and $865 million, representing 69% growth at the midpoint.
Despite strong revenue growth, Cerebras posted a net loss of $14.0 million in the quarter on a GAAP basis, though the company narrowed its core net loss to $2.5 million. The company remains in heavy investment mode, with research and development spending of $75.5 million and sales and marketing expenses of $14.7 million. Cerebras ended the quarter with $3.3 billion in cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, and short-term investments, bolstered by the IPO proceeds and a $1 billion working capital loan from OpenAI announced in January.
Sources
- Cerebras Investor Relations — Q1 2026 earnings announcement with core revenue, GAAP revenue, hardware and cloud revenue breakdown, gross margins, and full-year 2026 guidance
- CNBC — Cerebras 92% revenue growth in first earnings report since IPO
- The New York Times — Cerebras IPO priced at $185, opened at $350 on May 14, 2026
- TechCrunch — Cerebras IPO raised $5.55 billion, stock popped 108% on day one
- The Motley Fool — 2025 revenue of $510 million, up 76% from $290 million in 2024; company history and scale
- U.S. News – Money — Global semiconductor sales rose 93.9% from April 2025 to April 2026
