Ahead of Cerebras' IPO, How Durable Are the AI Chipmaker's Profits?

From its dependence on UAE revenue to its special agreements with OpenAI, here's what you need to know about the Nvidia rival.

After delays, artificial intelligence chipmaker Cerebras has filed to go public. The Nvidia NVDA rival's S-1 shows revenue of $510 million in 2025, up 76% from the year before. The filing also discloses a $24.6 billion order backlog, most of it tied to a December deal with OpenAI to supply 750 megawatts of AI compute through 2028, with options for nearly 3 gigawatts more by 2030. OpenAI advanced Cerebras a $1 billion loan and received warrants for 33 million near-free shares.

But Cerebras' profitability is driven in large part by a paper gain. In 2024, the company signed a deal with Abu Dhabi tech company G42 to sell its preferred shares, resulting in a $401 million loss that year. But in 2025, that deal came under US national security scrutiny, and it was eventually restructured. That scrutiny helped led to a delay in the company's IPO filing.

Cerebras was able to remove that liability from its balance sheet, recording a $363 million paper gain and making its 2025 financials look more rosy. In reality, the company posted an operating loss of $75.7 million, wider than the 2024 operating loss of $21.8 million.

Still, Cerebras remains highly reliant on the United Arab Emirates, with entities in the country making up 86% of the company's revenue. The Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence accounted for 62% of the firm's revenue in 2025, while G42 accounted for 24%. Meanwhile, revenue from US-billed customers dropped 34% from $282.7 million in 2024 to $187.6 million in 2025.

Founded in 2016 and based in Sunnyvale, California, Cerebras designs chips for AI-centric workloads. More recently, instead of selling its chips, the company began operating its own data centers powered by its chips, selling access to AI developers. The S-1 disclosed that some of Cerebras' biggest VC backers are Alpha Wave, Benchmark, Foundation Capital, and Fidelity. In February, Cerebras raised a $1 billion Series H at a $23 billion valuation.