Cerebras Systems reported stronger-than-expected second-quarter results on Wednesday, but investors still sent the stock lower in after-hours trading. The shares fell about 17% to around $219 after rising 12% during regular trading. The pullback came despite a quarterly beat, reflecting the elevated expectations that have built up around AI infrastructure stocks since Cerebras went public in May.

Cerebras Systems Inc. (CBRS) said core revenue for the quarter reached $210 million, above the $191 million Wall Street expected and double the level from a year earlier. The company uses a non-standard revenue measure that excludes pass-through revenue with no margin and adds back warrant amortization costs. On that basis, reported sales of $180.1 million in the quarter translated to $210 million in core revenue. Cerebras is one of several companies, alongside Groq and others, building alternatives to Nvidia's GPUs for AI inference workloads, using its wafer-scale WSE chips that pack far more compute onto a single die than conventional accelerators.

CEREBRAS SYSTEMS $CBRS JUST REPORTED Q2 EARNINGS

– EPS loss of $2.98 versus EPS of $1.91 in the same period last year 🔴 – Revenue of $180.1M missing expectations of $194M 🔴 – Cloud revenue of $126.0M beating expectations of $116.3M 🟢 – Hardware revenue of $54.1M missing… pic.twitter.com/PkncSxF2W5

— WOLF (@WOLF_Financial) August 12, 2026

Adjusted operating loss came in at $34 million, better than the $63 million loss analysts had expected. Cerebras also improved its full-year adjusted operating margin outlook to around -18%, compared with the -30% forecast it gave in June after its first-quarter results. The company said third-quarter guidance also came in above expectations.

Cerebras raised its 2026 core revenue forecast from $880 million to $890 million and increased its gross margin outlook to a range of 41% to 43%.

Net income remained a concern. The company reported a $450.5 million net loss in the second quarter, compared with net income of $309.5 million in the same quarter a year earlier.

The backlog held steady at about $25 billion. A large share of that figure is tied to a multi-year agreement with OpenAI for cloud access to Cerebras servers. Under that arrangement, OpenAI also has the option to expand the deal and is receiving stock warrants. Cerebras has also signed newer agreements with Amazon and AMD. Those deals are structured so Cerebras' WSE chip works alongside Amazon and AMD chips for high-speed inference tasks, and Amazon is also receiving stock warrants. The warrant arrangements mean multiple key partners hold equity-linked stakes in Cerebras, aligning their interests but also creating potential future share dilution.

Cerebras went public in May at $185 per share. The stock opened at $350 on its first day and reached a high of $386 before falling to a low of $161 by the end of June. Since then, it has traded between $162 and $266. The company has moved more than 3% in either direction on 43 of the 62 days it has traded publicly. Its market capitalization is currently around $59.37 billion.

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