Why the hottest tech IPO of the year matters for the AI race with China and in the Middle East
On Thursday, shares of Sunnyvale, California-based AI chipmaker Cerebras went public and nearly doubled in the moments after it opened on the Nasdaq at $185 per share.It closed out the day at $311 per share marking a 70% increase in the price of the stock, giving it a $95 billion market cap, and making it the largest IPO of the year so far.For investors desperate to get more AI exposure — the IPO was 20 times oversubscribed — this is one of the biggest new plays in the public markets, alongside chipmaker Nvidia.“This thing is flying … partly because there are so few ways for public investors, whether retail or institutional, to invest in this,” Chris Buskirk, co-founder and chief investment officer of 1789 Capital, an early investor in the company told me.Cerebras makes specialized high-power chips, most notably the Wafer Scale Engine, the largest chip ever produced with a processor the size of an entire silicon wafer and 19 times more computing power than Nvidia’s flagship chip.The IPO arrived at a pivotal moment, with AI becoming a key point of leverage in discussions with China amid President Trump’s visit to Xi Jinping in Beijing this week.“American companies are excellent but the Chinese companies are very good — well capitalized with very talented people,” Buskirk said.
“It’s going to be the American AI tech stack or the Chinese AI tech stack that will proliferate not just in our own countries, but around the world and that’s something we absolutely have to win.”In that context, Cerebras’ listing may be even more significant geopolitically than financially.The IPO serves as a timely reminder of how America is building both the hardware and software foundation to maintain AI dominance edge and how eager China is to get American chips.But investors say the company doesn’t just underscore America’s commanding AI hardware advantage — its deep ties across the Middle East are actively expanding US technology influence at a time ...