Cerebras Systems Inc. shares rose in premarket trading Monday, recovering from a significant drop the previous week after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sought to allay investor concerns regarding the two companies’ business relationship.
In a post on X on Friday, Altman addressed speculation about the partnership. “There is some speculation about our partnership with Cerebras,” Altman wrote. “Cerebras is a close partner, and we have a deep engagement pushing on the frontiers of speed.” Following the comment, Cerebras stock gained nearly 3% in extended trading on Friday and was up 6.3% at $177 per share ahead of Monday’s market open.
The positive sentiment comes after Cerebras stock plummeted 20% last week. The decline followed revelations that OpenAI would utilize Nvidia’s graphics processing units to power its new “Ultrafast” mode for the GPT-6.1 Sol model, rather than relying on Cerebras’ hardware.
Cerebras, which made its Nasdaq debut in May in what was described as a blockbuster initial public offering, has seen its valuation contract sharply. The company’s market capitalization currently sits at just over $39 billion, down from approximately $95 billion at the time of its IPO. The stock opened its IPO at $350, representing an 89% premium over the initial offering price of $185.
Despite the recent volatility, Cerebras maintains a substantial commercial relationship with OpenAI. In January, the two companies announced a $10 billion agreement under which Cerebras will supply 750 megawatts of computing power through 2028. The chipmaker markets its Wafer Scale Engine 3 as a faster alternative to traditional GPUs, claiming superior performance compared to Nvidia’s offerings.
Analysts at Citi issued a note Friday morning stating that their revenue outlook for Cerebras between 2026 and 2028 remains unchanged. They suggested that frontier AI labs typically deploy their latest models on internal chips before moving to third-party or Cerebras cloud infrastructure, indicating it may be too early to draw firm conclusions from the recent news.
However, the analysts warned that the stock’s future performance is increasingly linked to gross margin stability. “Any further delay in the gross margin trough would likely weigh on sentiment, particularly given Cerebras’ premium valuation,” the note stated.
That IPO premium was wild. Seeing it halve again just shows how fragile these AI hardware bets can be right now.
Wait, so they use Nvidia for Ultrafast but claim Cerebras is a close partner? Makes you wonder where the real priority lies.
Six percent bounce is huge after that twenty percent drop. Altman’s tweet really steadied the ship for now.