Cerebras shares plunge 15% as rising costs overshadow earnings beat

Cerebras shares plunged more than 15% in after hours trading Wednesday despite the AI chipmaker reporting stronger than expected second quarter results and raising its full year outlook.

The company reported core revenue of $209.9 million, up 103% from a year earlier and ahead of analyst expectations of about $191 million. GAAP revenue reached $180.1 million, up 74%, while cloud and other services revenue surged 281% to $126 million.

However, Cerebras’ costs rose sharply as the company continued investing heavily to expand its AI infrastructure. GAAP operating expenses climbed to $502.8 million from $89.3 million a year earlier.

Research and development expenses reached $320.2 million, while sales and marketing costs rose to $87 million and general and administrative expenses increased to $95.7 million.

The company posted a GAAP net loss of $450.5 million for the quarter compared with net income of $309.5 million a year earlier. A large portion of the expenses came from stock based compensation, with Cerebras recording $377 million during the quarter.

Cerebras is also spending heavily to expand capacity. Purchases of property and equipment reached $548.9 million during the first six months of 2026 as the company secured more than 600 megawatts of data center capacity and moved to increase manufacturing capacity by more than ten times this year.

The company expects third quarter core revenue of between $214 million and $216 million, above Wall Street expectations, but guided for a core operating margin between negative 25% and negative 23%, compared with negative 16% in the second quarter.

Cerebras also raised its full year core revenue forecast to between $880 million and $890 million and said it plans to more than triple revenue in 2027. The company ended the quarter with $25.4 billion in remaining performance obligations and $8.6 billion in cash, restricted cash, and short term investments.