Arm, SoftBank Fail In Bid To Buy NVDA Rival Cerebras Ahead Of IPO: Report

• Cerebras plans to list at between $150 to $160 per share. 
• The Nvidia rival plans to sell 30 million shares.
• Softbank has been looking to increase exposure to chipmaking firms.

UK-based Arm Holdings (ARM) and its parent company SoftBank Group (SFTBY) made a last-minute attempt to acquire AI chipmaker Cerebras Systems ahead of its highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO) on Wednesday. 

Cerebras (CBRS), the Silicon Valley startup known for its massive, dinner-plate-sized artificial intelligence chips and seen as Nvidia’s rival, reportedly rebuffed a preliminary approach, according to Bloomberg. The company is moving forward with its IPO, which is scheduled to price late Wednesday and begin trading on the Nasdaq on Thursday.

SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son has been trying to increase exposure in the AI chipmaking and broader hardware market as he seeks to position Arm as the central architecture for the next generation of computing. 

Its $6.5 billion acquisition of Ampere Computing, which makes server processors, closed in November 2025. 

Cerebras IPO Gains Momentum

The rejected acquisition offer comes amid a surge in investor demand for Cerebras. Earlier this week, the company significantly upsized its offering, raising its price range to between $150 and $160 per share, up from an initial target of $115 to $125.

If the IPO prices at the top of the new range, Cerebras could raise nearly $4.8 billion, valuing the company at approximately $48.8 billion. This would make it the largest tech IPO of 2026 to date. Just seven months ago, the company was valued at roughly $8 billion in private markets, reflecting the explosive growth in demand for specialized AI infrastructure.

Founded in 2016, Cerebras has differentiated itself from market leader Nvidia by producing the "Wafer-Scale Engine," a single chip that occupies an entire silicon wafer. Its latest iteration, the WSE-3, is designed to handle the massive computational loads required for training and running large language models (LLMs).

Cerebras IPO Morningstar View 

"Cerebras sits in a sweet spot for the current phase of the AI boom," said Brian Colello, senior equity analyst at Morningstar. He noted that the company’s valuation leap is "remarkable," driven by its focus on inference—the process of running AI models after they have been trained—which many believe will be the next major growth engine for the sector. 

“It’s remarkable that the business was valued at $8 billion in October … although large deals with OpenAI and Amazon Web Services certainly help the cause,” added Colello. 

What Does Cerebras Financial Show?

Financial disclosures included in Monday’s filing show revenue of $270.3 million for the first nine months of 2025, a significant jump from the $75.2 million reported during the same period a year earlier. Despite strong revenues, the company posted a net loss of $56.4 million for the recent nine-month period.

A significant portion of the company’s recent growth is tied to G42, an Abu Dhabi-based AI tech holding company, which accounted for 86% of Cerebras’ revenue last year. 

CBRS Retail View 

Retail sentiment on Stocktwits was “extremely bullish” with “extremely high” message volumes. 

One user noted that the takeover attempt shows that companies are trying to compete for control over compute, inference, and the underlying hardware stack. 

Read More: NVDA Rival Cerebras Bumps Up Its IPO Range, Targets $48.8B Valuation

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