Cerebras, the AI chip startup behind the WSE-3 that claims to be the 'fastest AI chip on the planet,' is going public, with OpenAI's Sam Altman also investing
Artificial intelligence (AI) chip startup
AI chipmaker Cerebras files for IPO to take on Nvidia
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/30/cerebras-files-for-ipo.html
Cerebras is an AI chip manufacturer founded in 2016 and based in Sunnyvale, California, USA. Co-founder and CEO Andrew Feldman is also the man who previously launched server startup SeaMicro and sold it to AMD for $334 million (about 48 billion yen).
Cerebras is working on developing chips used to train AI models, and its Wafer-Scale Engine 3 (WSE-3) is the fastest AI chip on the planet, with more cores and memory than NVIDIA's H100, which is used for AI training. The WSE-3 is also 'physically large.'
Cerebras announces the world's fastest AI chip 'WSE-3' equipped with 4 trillion transistors - GIGAZINE
In addition to selling AI chips such as the WSE-3, Cerebras also offers cloud computing services based on its own AI chips.
Cerebras released its IPO prospectus on Monday, September 30, 2024 local time. Cerebras plans to IPO on Nasdaq, and the ticker symbol will be 'CBRS.'
According to the prospectus, Cerebras' sales for the first half of 2024 are expected to increase 1470% year-over-year to $136.4 million, and its net loss is expected to decrease 14% year-over-year to $66.6 million. Cerebras reported that labor costs increased in the first half of 2024 to support revenue growth. Cerebras' sales for the second quarter of 2024 were $69.8 million (approximately 10 billion yen) and its net loss was $50.9 million (approximately 7.3 billion yen).
The AI chip industry is a rapidly growing and competitive market, with Cerebras and other major technology companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft also taking part. Microsoft has invested $1.5 billion in G42, the largest AI company in the UAE, which represents 83% of Microsoft's revenue in 2023 .
In addition to NVIDIA, Cerebras lists AMD, Intel, Microsoft and Google as competitors, and also says in its prospectus that it will compete against 'custom application-specific integrated circuits developed internally and various private companies.'
The prospectus also revealed that Cerebras' AI chips are manufactured by TSMC , and G42 has signed a contract to purchase $1.43 billion worth of AI chips by March 2025. G42 owns less than 5% of Cerebras' Class A shares and has the option to purchase more shares depending on the amount of Cerebras products it purchases.
Neither tech investment bank Morgan Stanley nor Goldman Sachs was involved in Cerebras' IPO, which is being led by Citigroup and Barclays.
Cerebras' largest investor is venture capital firm Foundation Capital, followed by Eclipse Ventures. Alpha Wave, Coatue, and Altimeter also own at least 5% of Cerebras, according to the prospectus. The only individual to own more than 5% of Cerebras is co-founder and CEO Feldman, but other investors include OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
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in Hardware, Posted by logu_ii