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This week, Cerebras Systems, a prominent AI chip manufacturer, announced it has successfully secured $1 billion in new funding, skyrocketing its valuation to $23 billion—an impressive leap from its previous valuation of $8.1 billion just six months ago.
Leading this investment round is Tiger Global, while a substantial portion of the capital also comes from one of Cerebras’ original investors: Benchmark Capital. Reports suggest that Benchmark has committed at least $225 million to this latest funding effort, based on information from insiders.
Benchmark Capital first invested in the now 10-year-old Cerebras during its $27 million Series A funding round in 2016. To manage its investments effectively, especially as it maintains a cap on its funds under $450 million, Benchmark established two distinct investment vehicles named ‘Benchmark Infrastructure,’ as outlined in recent regulatory filings. These were specifically set up to enable the current investment in Cerebras.
Benchmark Capital has opted not to provide any comments on the matter.
Cerebras distinguishes itself through the remarkable scale of its processors. Its flagship product, the Wafer Scale Engine unveiled in 2024, measures about 8.5 inches on each side and incorporates an astounding 4 trillion transistors within a single silicon piece. For context, this chip is derived from nearly an entire 300-millimeter silicon wafer, contrasting sharply with traditional chips that are typically small fragments obtained from these wafers. Cerebras’ approach utilizes almost the entire circular wafer, which is a significant innovation in chip design.
This architectural strategy allows for 900,000 specialized cores operating in parallel, thus facilitating AI computations without the data shuffling required by conventional GPU clusters—a major hindrance in traditional setups. According to the company, this design translates into AI inference capabilities that are over 20 times quicker than those of competing systems.
The latest funding arrives as Cerebras solidifies its standing in the competitive AI infrastructure market. Just last month, the company entered into a multi-year partnership valued at over $10 billion, aimed at providing 750 megawatts of computational power to OpenAI. Set to last through 2028, this collaboration is designed to enhance OpenAI’s ability to deliver quicker responses for complex AI queries (notably, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is also an investor in Cerebras).
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June 23, 2026
Cerebras asserts that its proprietary chip systems outperform Nvidia’s competing products in terms of speed and efficiency.
The journey towards a public offering has proven to be complex due to Cerebras’ business relationship with G42, a UAE-based AI company that constituted 87% of Cerebras’ revenue in the first half of 2024. G42’s historical associations with certain Chinese technology firms led to a national security review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which delayed Cerebras’ IPO timeline and even resulted in the withdrawal of an earlier filing in early 2025. However, G42’s recent removal from Cerebras’ investor profile has cleared the path for a new attempt at an IPO.
Cerebras is now gearing up for its anticipated public debut in the second quarter of 2026, as reported by Reuters.
### Hustle Verdict
Our take is that Cerebras’ latest funding signals a pivotal moment for the AI infrastructure sector, reflecting increased investor confidence and demand for advanced chip technology. We believe that this development will not only accelerate Cerebras’ competitive edge against existing players like Nvidia but also influence future innovation trends in AI processing capabilities across various industries. The bottom line is that this funding round positions Cerebras favorably for sustained growth and market leadership, setting a new benchmark in AI hardware.
