In a market jittery about anything AI-related, it's little wonder that Cerebras's projection of narrower profit margins in its financial results Tuesday caused a scare. The company's shares fell 15% in midday trading Wednesday.
Yet there are bigger questions hanging over the chip company, which had its IPO last month. One is whether it can diversify its customer base. Another is whether it can capitalize on the fact that the way its AI processors are produced means it doesn't need memory chips that are in short supply.
And on those fronts, things are looking a bit better.
Cerebras said in listing documents that about 86% of its revenue last year came from customers in the United Arab Emirates who have tapped it to set up AI infrastructure for them. That concentration is a concern. But the company also said it has inked a more than $20 billion deal over several years with OpenAI, as well as an agreement in March to bring its chips to Amazon.com's cloud-computing service.
The company also seems primed to benefit from sky-high demand for memory that is constraining the growth of AI chips and the servers they go into. Cerebras's chips don't require the kind of high-bandwidth memory that is lining the pockets of companies like Micron Technology and SK Hynix. It also doesn't need the most cutting-edge chip-making process offered by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., giving it another supply-chain edge.
True, margins are expected to compress because the company is spending a lot of money on expansion and renting back some of its equipment from customers to meet demand. But in the longer term, Cerebras has good chances for strong growth.
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