Chipmaker Cerebras in Talks to Raise $1 Billion at a $22 Billion Valuation
AI chip startup Cerebras Systems is in talks to raise about $1 billion, valuing the company at $22 billion before the new investment, as the chipmaker prepares to go public this year, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.
That’s a big jump from its last private valuation of $8.1 billion in September 2025, when it raised $1.1 billion from investors such as Fidelity Management and Atreides Management.
The startup is expected to list in the coming months, according to one person familiar with the matter. Cerebras had aimed to go public earlier but said last September that it was withdrawing those plans and instead raised money privately.
Cerebras declined to comment.
Last year, Cerebras had several issues that could have made it a tough sell for public investors. Its revenue mostly came from one Middle East customer, Group 42 Holding, the parent of G42, a United Arab Emirates AI powerhouse. G42 enlisted Cerebras to build three supercomputers for it.
The startup is expected to announce a new high-profile customer in the coming days, according to three people with knowledge of the details, which would reduce its exposure to Group 42.
The fundraising and the new valuation come after Nvidia agreed to strike a $20 billion non-exclusive technology licensing deal with Cerebras competitor Groq in late December, a sign that demand is strong for specialized chips that run AI applications fast and cheaply.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Wall Street analysts in a meeting at CES in early January that its deal with Groq will help Nvidia expand to AI-powered devices and other future services that require “instantaneous” response time that its ultra-powerful chips aren’t currently suited for. Similar to Groq, Cerebras develops and sells custom chips to train and run AI models.
The deal also signals continued investor interest in startups that hope to compete with Nvidia in the market of making specialized chips that run AI models. Tenstorrent, another startup in the category, has been in talks to raise at least $800 million in a deal led by current investor Fidelity Management, The Information previously reported.