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Cerebras Systems shares edged higher Friday after Freedom Capital upgraded the artificial-intelligence chipmaker to Buy from Hold, arguing investors had overreacted to reports about OpenAI’s use of Nvidia processors. The firm set a $209 price target, offering a fresh counterpoint to a selloff that had brought the stock close to its post-IPO lows.
The rebound followed a roughly 17% decline in recent sessions, triggered by reports that OpenAI was using Nvidia GPUs for the ultrafast version of its GPT-1 Sol model. Investors have questioned what the reports could mean for Cerebras’ relationship with OpenAI, a customer central to the company’s growth outlook. The report did not establish that OpenAI had ended or reduced its wider relationship with Cerebras.
Freedom Capital sees an exaggerated reaction
Freedom Capital’s analyst, Paul Meeks, characterized the market’s response as excessive, saying the reported use of Nvidia hardware represented a limited threat even if confirmed. The upgrade moved the firm’s rating to Buy from Hold and set a $209 target.
That target is below the reported Wall Street consensus of $292 and the high estimate of $330, signaling that the upgrade did not erase concerns about execution or valuation. Cerebras shares were reported near $171 on Wednesday, close to their lowest closing level since the company’s May 2026 initial public offering.
OpenAI reports drove investor concern
The immediate concern was a report that OpenAI had selected Nvidia GPUs for the Ultrafast version of GPT-1 Sol. That news raised questions about the competitive position of Cerebras’ specialized systems in AI inference—the computing used to generate responses from trained models—and about how much business the company can secure from a major customer.
Freedom Capital pointed to Cerebras’ other relationships, including partnerships with Advanced Micro Devices and Amazon Web Services, as reasons not to treat the OpenAI report as a decisive change to the company’s prospects. The firm also argued that demand for AI computing is expected to exceed available supply for years, though that expectation is an analyst view, not a guaranteed outcome.
Growth targets depend on capacity
Analyst projections cited in the contemporaneous coverage put Cerebras’ revenue at $887 million for 2026 and $2.95 billion for 2027, more than tripling year over year. Those forecasts make the company’s ability to expand its infrastructure important: Freedom Capital identified timely additions to power capacity and execution as risks.
Cerebras builds systems around its Wafer Scale Engine technology, which it positions for AI inference workloads. The company’s growth plans therefore depend not only on demand for its products, but also on delivering the power and manufacturing capacity needed to serve customers. The available reports did not specify a new capacity milestone or timetable in response to the downgrade-related selloff.
Rebound does not settle the competitive question
The analyst upgrade supplied a near-term positive signal after the steep decline, but it did not resolve whether Cerebras can convert forecasts and partnerships into delivered capacity and revenue. Nor does a one-session rebound establish that investor concern about the OpenAI reports has passed.
At the time of the reports, other analysts’ price targets were materially higher than Freedom Capital’s $209 target, underscoring that views on the stock differed. The next evidence investors can assess will include company updates on revenue, deployment capacity and customer demand; the coverage did not identify a specific upcoming announcement date.
