Cerebras goes public, igniting the AI capital market; Trump's son-backed investment firms emerge

ME News message: On May 16 (UTC+8), American AI chip company Cerebras Systems officially listed on NASDAQ, becoming the largest IPO globally since 2026. It raised approximately $5.55 billion, surged as much as 108% during the day, and closed its first day with a market capitalization of $67 billion. The company focuses on a wafer-scale giant AI chip architecture, which the market views as an important competitor to challenge Nvidia’s GPU dominance, and it has already received compute order support from multiple AI enterprises, including OpenAI. Of particular note is the appearance in its investor roster of 1789 Capital, with participation by Donald Trump Jr. Since 2025, the firm has participated in two rounds of funding for Cerebras, and in subsequent financing rounds it has continued to increase its commitments. Ahead of the IPO, Cerebras completed multiple rounds of financing; its valuation rose to as high as $23 billion, attracting institutions and industrial capital such as Benchmark, Fidelity, and AMD, forming a diverse shareholder structure spanning both Silicon Valley and Wall Street. Analysts noted that this IPO not only became an important milestone in the AI chip sector, but also further amplified the trend of capital concentration in the AI infrastructure space; meanwhile, the appearance of investment institutions related to political families added even more market and public attention to the deal. (Source: ChainCatcher)