Cerebras Shares Drop 14% After Hours Despite Higher Full-Year Revenue Guidance

Cerebras Systems watched its stock tumble roughly 14% in late trading on Wednesday following the release of its second quarterly financial report as a public company. Despite raising its full-year core revenue outlook on robust demand for its artificial intelligence processors, investor reaction turned negative after extended trading began, as first reported by CNBC Business.

For the second quarter ending in June, the semiconductor firm recorded $180 million in total revenue. Cerebras also reported a core revenue figure of $210 million, a metric that strips out the impact of pass-through revenues and costs tied to the amortization of customer warrant assets.

Bottom-line performance moved into negative territory, with Cerebras posting a net loss of $450.5 million for the period. That compares with net income of $309.5 million, or $1.91 per share, during the same quarter last year. Executives attributed the bulk of the loss to stock-based compensation costs totaling $386.6 million following its public listing.

Looking ahead to the third quarter, Cerebras expects core revenue to range between $214 million and $216 million, with core gross margins expanding to between 38% and 40%. For the full year, the company elevated its core revenue guidance to between $880 million and $890 million, up from its previous range of $855 million to $865 million. Management added that overall revenue is expected to triple in the upcoming fiscal year.

In an interview with CNBC Business, Chief Executive Officer Andrew Feldman noted that enterprise demand for AI hardware is "through the roof" and that customers are paying premium prices for specialized chips designed for "fast inference"—low-latency processing required for interactive AI models. "Gross margins are in a good spot, and growing, because fast inference is priced at a premium," Feldman said.

To support its long-term growth trajectory, Cerebras reported $25.4 billion in remaining performance obligations, which Feldman described as an indicator of extraordinary future demand. Discussing scaling plans, Feldman said, "We will manufacture more efficiently. We'll get better pricing on componentry. We'll amortize our manufacturing organization over more units," adding that these factors point "up and to the right."

The quarterly results come during a period of strategic partnerships for the chipmaker, which competes against Nvidia on specialized AI acceleration workloads. Cerebras recently announced a partnership with Advanced Micro Devices, with co-developed products scheduled for production later this year. Additionally, the company said OpenAI can run its GPT 5.6 Sol model on Cerebras chips, while its direct cloud access business brought in $126 million in revenue during the June quarter.

Cerebras went public on the Nasdaq in May, raising $6.4 billion after pricing its initial public offering at $185 per share. While the stock has backed off from its peak following the debut, it closed regular trading on Wednesday at $262.06, marking a 42% gain from its IPO price prior to the aftermarket decline.