Chip startup Cerebras Systems is considering an initial public offering as early as the second half of 2024.
According to Bloomberg, the company, which develops wafer-scale chips, has already held discussions with potential advisors and is seeking a valuation above the $4 billion figure it achieved as a result of its 2021 funding round.
The company raised $250 million in its November 2021 Series F round led by Alpha Wave Ventures, a partnership between Falcon Edge and Chimera, joining investors Altimeter, Benchmark, Coatue, Eclipse, Moore, and VY.
It's believed that Cerebras is hoping to embark on further private funding rounds before a final decision is made about whether to float the company.
Earlier this month, Cerebras announced it would be supporting the US National Science Foundation’s (NSF) National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) two-year pilot plan to democratize access to AI technology and research.
In a statement, the company said it would grant remote access NAIRR researchers with up to four exaflops of AI compute for large language and generative AI model training, using CS-2 systems within the Condor Galaxy AI supercomputer.
Located in Santa Clara, California, Condor Galaxy 1, which went online in July 2021, was the first of nine supercomputers Cerebras is building across the US in partnership with UAE-based G42.
The system contains the company’s Wafer Scale Engine 2, the world's largest chip, which consists of 2.6 trillion transistors, 850,000 'AI optimized' cores, 40GB of on-chip SRAM memory, 20 petabytes of memory bandwidth, and 220 petabits of aggregate fabric bandwidth.
In the first half of 2024, two more will come online at data centers in Austin, Texas, and Asheville, North Carolina, with a further six planned for later in the year.
