Cerebras, OpenAI’s close partner, eyes blockbuster IPO

After years of anticipation and regulatory delays, Cerebras Systems is finally on the cusp of going public. On Monday, the AI chipmaker announced plans to offer 28 million shares priced between $115 and $125 each. At the top of that range, the company would raise approximately $3.5 billion and achieve a market capitalization of $26.6 billion.

That valuation represents a tidy premium over the $23 billion price tag set during its massive $1 billion Series H round in February. More importantly, a successful IPO would deliver significant returns not only to late-stage investors but also to OpenAI and several of its top executives.

If Cerebras prices at or above the high end, it will claim the title of the largest tech IPO of 2026 so far. Such a strong debut could also signal robust market appetite for even bigger offerings on the horizon, including SpaceX and possibly OpenAI and Anthropic.

At the core of the company’s pitch is its proprietary Wafer-Scale Engine 3, a chip purpose-built for AI workloads. Cerebras claims this chip outperforms GPU-based alternatives on inference tasks , the computing required to process user prompts , while consuming less power.

The IPO stands to benefit a roster of blue-chip investors. According to the company’s SEC filing, shareholders with stakes exceeding 5% include Rick Gerson’s Alpha Wave, Benchmark (represented by partner Eric Vishria), Lior Susan’s Eclipse, Fidelity, and Foundation Capital (via partner Steve Vassallo). The broader investor list also features 1789 Capital, the Abu Dhabi Growth Fund, G42, Alpha Wave Global, Altimeter, AMD, Atreides Management, Coatue, Moore Strategic Ventures, Tiger Global, Valor Equity Partners, and VY Capital.

Beyond institutional backers, Cerebras lists a constellation of angel investors on its website. These include OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman, OpenAI president Greg Brockman, former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever (now leading his own AI startup), OpenAI board member and Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, Sun Microsystems and Arista co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim, and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan.

Though Sam Altman’s personal stake was not large enough to require SEC disclosure, he was quoted in the company’s S-1 filing. That’s because the Cerebras-OpenAI relationship runs far deeper than a typical angel investment. This connection even surfaced as evidence in Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI. Musk’s attorneys alleged that OpenAI had once considered acquiring Cerebras, and that Musk was unaware of the personal investments made by OpenAI executives in the chipmaker.

That acquisition never materialized, but OpenAI did become one of Cerebras’ largest customers. In December, OpenAI extended a $1 billion loan to Cerebras, secured by warrants that allow OpenAI to purchase over 33 million shares. While OpenAI is not a major shareholder today, that could change dramatically.

Cerebras originally aimed to go public in 2024 but was delayed by a federal review of an investment from Abu Dhabi-based cloud provider G42, a major customer. That IPO was ultimately shelved. A year later, the company raised $1.1 billion at an $8.1 billion post-money valuation, led by Fidelity and Atreides. Shortly afterward, it signed a multi-year agreement worth more than $10 billion with OpenAI, which included the loan and warrants. In February, it closed its final mega-round: the $1 billion Series H.

If investors embrace the IPO, the gains for OpenAI and its executives could be substantial. And early signs are promising. According to Bloomberg, banks have already received $10 billion in orders for the $3.5 billion share offering. That level of demand suggests the final price could land above the announced range, generating even more cash for Cerebras and greater returns for its backers.