AMD vs Cerebras: Revenue, Profit and Business Model
AMD reported $34.6B of revenue in FY2025 and $4.3B of net income. Cerebras reported $510M of revenue in FY2025 and $87.9M of net income.
Latest financial snapshot
Financial summary
AMD
AMD's decade is a turnaround with a paper trail. Revenue fell to $4.0B in 2015 and the company lost $660M; its market value ended that year near $2.3B. Zen-based Ryzen and EPYC parts, and Intel's process delays, shifted the mix toward servers and then AI accelerators. FY2025 revenue was $34.6B, up 34% from $25.8B, with net income of $4.3B, a 50% gross margin, $8.1B of research and development spending, and $4.1B of marketing, general and administrative expense. Cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments rose to $10.6B from $5.1B a year earlier, against $3.3B of total debt principal. The result also absorbed about $440M of net inventory and related charges tied to US export controls on Instinct MI308 products.
Cerebras
Cerebras reported revenue of $510 million in 2025, up about 76% from roughly $290 million in 2024, and swung to net income of $87.9 million from a $485 million loss. After its May 2026 IPO it began reporting 'core revenue', which excludes pass-through revenue and amortization of customer warrant assets. Q1 2026 core revenue was $191.3 million (up 92%), and Q2 2026 core revenue was $209.9 million (up 103%), against GAAP revenue of $180.1 million. Q2 GAAP net loss was $450.5 million, mostly from $386.6 million of stock-based compensation tied to the listing. Management raised 2026 core revenue guidance to $880-890 million and guided Q3 to $214-216 million. Remaining performance obligations stood at $25.4 billion.
Revenue and profit by year
AMD
| Year | Revenue | Net income | Margin | Growth | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | $34.6B | $4.3B | 12.5% | +34.3% | Source |
| FY2024 | $25.8B | $1.6B | 6.4% | +13.7% | Source |
| FY2023 | $22.7B | $854M | 3.8% | -3.9% | Source |
| FY2022 | $23.6B | $1.3B | 5.6% | +43.6% | Source |
| FY2021 | $16.4B | $3.2B | 19.2% | +68.3% | Source |
| FY2020 | $9.8B | $2.5B | 25.5% | +45.0% | Source |
| FY2019 | $6.7B | $341M | 5.1% | +4.0% | Source |
| FY2018 | $6.5B | $337M | 5.2% | +23.3% | Source |
| FY2017 | $5.3B | -$33M | -0.6% | +21.6% | Source |
| FY2016 | $4.3B | -$498M | -11.5% | — | Source |
Cerebras
| Year | Revenue | Net income | Margin | Growth | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | $510M | $87.9M | 17.2% | +75.7% | Source |
| FY2024 | $290.3M | -$485M | -167.1% | +268.9% | Source |
| FY2023 | $78.7M | — | 0.0% | — | Source |
Where the revenue comes from
AMD
- Data Center~48%
EPYC server CPUs, Instinct AI accelerators, Pensando DPUs, AI network interface cards, FPGAs, and adaptive SoCs sold to cloud providers, enterprises, and HPC customers. Net revenue was $16.6B in FY2025, up 32%.
- Client and Gaming~42%
Ryzen desktop and notebook processors, chipsets, Radeon discrete GPUs, and semi-custom SoCs for PlayStation and Xbox consoles. Net revenue was $14.6B in FY2025, up 51%, with Client at $10.6B and Gaming at $3.9B.
- Embedded~10%
Xilinx-derived FPGAs, adaptive SoCs, system-on-modules, and embedded CPUs sold into telecommunications, aerospace, defense, automotive, and industrial markets. Net revenue was $3.5B in FY2025, down 3%.
Cerebras
- Cloud & Other Services (Fast Inference)
~61% of Q2 2026 core revenue
Per-token API fees and dedicated capacity contracts for running AI models on Cerebras systems in leased data centers, led by OpenAI. $127.7 million in Q2 2026.
- Hardware Systems
~39% of Q2 2026 core revenue
Sales of CS-3 systems and clusters to sovereign AI programs, universities, national labs, and enterprises. $82.1 million in Q2 2026.
Business model and strategy
AMD
How it makes money
Advanced Micro Devices runs a fabless semiconductor model. It designs CPUs, GPUs, AI accelerators, FPGAs, and adaptive SoCs, and contracts the wafer manufacturing to outside foundries, primarily TSMC. That structure keeps leading-edge fabrication off AMD's balance sheet and makes engineering its largest investment: research and development cost $8.1B in FY2025, about 23% of revenue.
Growth strategy
AMD's growth plan centers on data center AI, funded by $8.1B of research and development in FY2025. It has bought capability rather than waiting to build it: Xilinx in February 2022 for FPGAs and adaptive computing, a deal announced in October 2020 at about $35B in stock and worth roughly $49B at close; Pensando in May 2022 for DPUs at about $1.9B; Silo AI in August 2024 for AI software engineering at about $665M;
Competitive advantage
AMD's advantage is design and packaging execution without fab ownership. Because it buys capacity from TSMC instead of running leading-edge fabs, it can move to a newer process node as soon as the foundry has one in volume. Its chiplet approach assembles a processor from smaller dies linked by Infinity Fabric, which improves usable yield and makes high core-count parts cheaper to build than a single large die.
Cerebras
How it makes money
Cerebras makes money in two ways. First, it sells hardware: CS-3 systems built around the WSE-3 chip, bought by sovereign AI programs, national labs, universities, and enterprises that want to own their compute. Second, and now larger, it sells cloud and services: customers pay to run models on Cerebras systems hosted in data centers it leases, either through per-token inference APIs or dedicated capacity contracts.
Growth strategy
Cerebras' growth strategy centers on fast inference. It is building out leased data center capacity to serve OpenAI and other model providers, distributing its service through Amazon Web Services under a March 2026 agreement, and pricing low-latency token generation at a premium to GPU clouds.
Competitive advantage
Cerebras' edge is its wafer-scale architecture. A GPU cluster splits a model across many chips and spends time and energy moving data between them over external links. The WSE-3 keeps 900,000 cores and 44 GB of SRAM on one piece of silicon, so weights and activations move across the wafer at 21 PB/s.
Questions about AMD vs Cerebras
Which company has higher revenue — Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. or Cerebras Systems Inc.?
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. reported $34.6B (FY2025), while Cerebras Systems Inc. reported $510.0M (FY2025). By last reported revenue, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. is the larger business, with Cerebras Systems Inc. reporting a smaller revenue base.
What is the market cap of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. vs Cerebras Systems Inc.?
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.'s market capitalisation stands at $999.5B, while Cerebras Systems Inc.'s is $46.3B. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. carries the higher market valuation, reflecting investors' expectations of its future earnings power relative to Cerebras Systems Inc..
Which is more financially efficient — Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. or Cerebras Systems Inc.?
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. generates $1.12M / employee in revenue per employee, while Cerebras Systems Inc. generates $720k / employee. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. shows higher revenue efficiency per headcount, though this reflects business model differences — capital-light software companies routinely outperform labour-intensive manufacturers on this metric.
How do Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. and Cerebras Systems Inc. make money?
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. and Cerebras Systems Inc. generate revenue in fundamentally different ways. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.: Advanced Micro Devices runs a fabless semiconductor model. Cerebras Systems Inc.: Cerebras makes money in two ways.
Which company is valued higher relative to revenue — Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. or Cerebras Systems Inc.?
On a price-to-sales (P/S) basis, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. trades at 28.9x P/S and Cerebras Systems Inc. at 90.8x P/S. Cerebras Systems Inc. commands a higher revenue multiple, typically indicating that investors expect faster growth or higher future margins compared to Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.. A higher multiple is not inherently better — it may also signal that the stock is priced for perfection.
Is Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. bigger than Cerebras Systems Inc.?
By last reported revenue, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. ($34.6B (FY2025)) is the larger company compared to Cerebras Systems Inc. ($510.0M (FY2025)). Revenue scale is one dimension of size — market capitalisation, employee count, and geographic reach are also relevant depending on the context.
Figures come from each company's filings and the sources linked beside them. Amounts reported in another currency are shown in US dollars at an approximate rate and marked with ~. Back to the AMD vs Cerebras overview