OpenAI’s cool partner Cerebras is on track for a blockbuster IPO

In the long-running saga that is the IPO of Cerebras Systems, the finish line is in sight. The AI ​​chip maker said Monday it is preparing to sell 28 million shares at $115 to $125 a share. This would raise $3.5 billion and give it a $26.6 billion market cap at the top end.

That would be a nice bump in a few months for late investors who piled into the $1 billion Series H for $23 billion in February. It could also be a boon to OpenAI and its few administrators.

If Cerebras pulls off an initial public offering by the end or later, this will be the biggest tech IPO of 2026 so far. It could also prove to favor big blockbuster contributions in the wings, such as SpaceX and OpenAI and Anthropic.

Cerebras offers an AI-specific chip called Wafer-Scale Engine 3 that challenges GPU-based AI chips. Cerebras says its chip is noticeably faster while using less power than its competitors. Inference is the computing required to process user commands.

A long list of high profile investors will benefit from a healthy IPO. Alpha Wave by Rick Gerson; Benchmark (by partner Eric Vishria); Lior Susan’s Eclipse; Honesty; and Foundation Capital (through partner Steve Vassallo) are the largest shareholders with more than 5% stake, according to the company’s SEC filing.

The company says its list of investors includes 1789 Capital, Abu Dhabi Growth Fund, G42 of Abu Dhabi, Alpha Wave Global, Altimeter, AMD, Atreides Management, Coatue, Moore Strategic Ventures, Tiger Global, Valor Equity Partners, and VY Capital.

Also, Cerebras calls out on its website a long list of angel investors, too. These include OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman, OpenAI founder and president Greg Brockman, former OpenAI chief scientist (now co-founder of his own AI startup) Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI board member and Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, Sun Microsystems and Arista co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim, Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, and a few other technical ones.

While Sam Altman’s stake was not large enough to disclose in an SEC filing, he was cited in its S-1. That’s because Cerebras’ relationship with OpenAI is more notable than its angel investors.

This relationship was presented as evidence by Elon Musk in his lawsuit with OpenAI. OpenAI once considered acquiring Cerebras, according to official documents from Musk’s lawyers who said he was not aware of all the money invested by the OpenAI company.

That deal never materialized, but OpenAI has been one of Cerebras’ biggest customers. In fact, in December, OpenAI loaned Cerebras $1 billion, secured by warrants that allowed OpenAI to buy more than 33 million shares, the S-1 disclosed. So while OpenAI isn’t a major shareholder right now, it could become one.

Cerebras had hoped to go public in 2024 but was delayed by a government review of investments from Abu Dhabi-based cloud provider G42, which was (and still is, the chip company) a major customer. That IPO attempt was ultimately abandoned.

A year later, Cerebras wants to raise more money. In September, it raised $1.1 billion in an $8.1 billion post-money round led by Fidelity and Atreides. A few months later, Cerebras signed its new multi-year agreement worth more than $10 billion with OpenAI that includes loans and guarantees. In February, it raised a $1 billion Series H, its last mega round.

If investors buy the IPO, then OpenAI and its management will benefit in more ways than one.

That seems possible. Banks are already issuing orders for $10 billion worth of the $3.5 billion shares being offered, Bloomberg reports. That kind of demand indicates that the company will likely price its shares above this announced range, raising more money for itself and more value for its investors.