The year's largest IPO — Cerebras joins the hottest trade in AI — 5/14/2026
Speakers
Ram Parameswaran
— Founder, Octahedron Capital
Summary
This CNBC live stream covers the blockbuster IPO of Cerebras, the year's largest U.S. listing, which popped over 70% on its first day. Guests include the CFO of Cerebras, a hedge fund manager who got allocation, the CEO of competitor SambaNova, and the CEO of Silicon Data, which is building the first compute futures market with CME. Key themes are the insatiable demand for AI compute, the sustainability of the semiconductor cycle, and how investors can get exposure through public stocks like Nvidia, Google, Meta, and Snowflake.
- Cerebras debuted on Nasdaq at a valuation near $70 billion after pricing above range; the stock surged over 70% in its first day.
- Cerebras CFO Bob Komin said demand exceeds supply with the company sold out into 2027 and OpenAI as a major customer.
- Hedge fund manager Ram Parameswaran of Octahedron Capital is long Cerebras but expects a pullback before adding more.
- Parameswaran also recommends Nvidia, Google, Meta, and Snowflake as AI plays with individual theses.
- SambaNova CEO Rodrigo Liang views the Cerebras IPO as validation for the custom AI silicon category and sees strong enterprise demand.
- Silicon Data CEO Carmen Li announced a compute futures market with CME Group to help firms hedge GPU rental price volatility.
- Compute is described as on track to become the world's largest commodity by dollar spend, with prices showing cyclical behavior.
- The IPO pipeline includes SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic, with many investors looking for ways to gain exposure through existing public names.
Ideas
Buy Cerebras on IPO price pullback
Cerebras has a niche in the fastest inference AI compute, with OpenAI as a sticky customer and a multi-year backlog sold out into 2027. The public market valuations are based on 2028 revenue, so the stock is not as expensive as it appears. However, after a massive first-day pop, history suggests the stock will pull back toward its IPO price. Therefore, wait for a pullback before buying.
Nvidia undervalued despite high coverage
Nvidia, despite being the best-covered company in semiconductors, is still undervalued at $230 per share because its earnings will be quite high next year. The AI cycle is elongated, and Nvidia's dominance continues.
Snowflake will see revenue acceleration
Infrastructure software has bottomed, and security software demand is being pulled forward due to massive patching in Fortune 500 companies. If private leader Databricks is seeing revenue acceleration, it is reasonable to assume that Snowflake will see equal acceleration.
Buy Google for AI exposure
Google is the cheapest way to play the AI IPO pipeline because it has the lowest cost of tokens, the longest capacity structures, the best talent density (many top AI researchers come from Google DeepMind), and its models keep improving. The stock is a bit expensive at 25x earnings but on a pullback it can deliver 20-25% upside.
Meta is largest contrarian bet
Meta is highly understated and is the firm's largest position. AI-driven personalization on the ad and consumer side is causing revenue to accelerate from 30%+ growth, showing strong ROIC on capex. Meta's capex is inefficient (no chip capacity) but the returns are still excellent. The management team is talented and Zuck should never be counted out.
