Cerebras vs NVIDIA: Revenue, Profit and Business Model
Cerebras reported $510M of revenue in FY2025 and $87.9M of net income. NVIDIA reported $215.9B of revenue in FY2026 and $120.1B of net income.
Latest financial snapshot
Financial summary
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.
NVIDIA
NVIDIA's revenue rose from $27.0B in fiscal 2023 to $60.9B in FY2024, $130.5B in FY2025 and $215.9B in FY2026, which ended January 25, 2026. FY2026 net income was $120.1B. Growth sped up again in fiscal 2027: Q1 revenue was $81.6B and Q2 (ended July 26, 2026) was $96.2B, up 106% year over year, with a 75.0% gross margin and $59.7B GAAP net income. Guidance for Q3 FY2027 is $108.0B, plus or minus 2%, and assumes no Data Center compute revenue from China. NVIDIA returned about $26.0B to shareholders in Q2. In May 2026 it raised the quarterly dividend to $0.25 from $0.01, and on September 28, 2026 it added $150B to its buyback authorization.
Revenue and profit by year
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 |
NVIDIA
| Year | Revenue | Net income | Margin | Growth | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2026 | $215.9B | $120.1B | 55.6% | +65.5% | Source |
| FY2025 | $130.5B | $72.9B | 55.8% | +114.2% | Source |
| FY2024 | $60.9B | $29.8B | 48.8% | +125.9% | Source |
| FY2023 | $27B | $4.4B | 16.2% | +0.2% | Source |
| FY2022 | $26.9B | $9.8B | 36.2% | +61.4% | Source |
| FY2021 | $16.7B | $4.3B | 26.0% | +52.7% | Source |
| FY2020 | $10.9B | $2.8B | 25.6% | -6.8% | Source |
| FY2019 | $11.7B | $4.1B | 35.3% | +20.6% | Source |
| FY2018 | $9.7B | $3B | 31.4% | +40.6% | Source |
| FY2017 | $6.9B | $1.7B | 24.1% | — | Source |
Where the revenue comes from
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.
NVIDIA
- Data CenterDominant
GPU accelerators, AI systems, networking, and software for cloud, enterprise, and supercomputing customers.
- GamingMaterial
GeForce GPUs and gaming-platform products for PC gamers, creators, and consumer AI PCs.
- Professional Visualization
Complementary
Workstation GPUs, visualization, simulation, and Omniverse-related products.
- AutomotiveGrowth
Automotive compute, software, and autonomous-driving platforms.
- Software And ServicesGrowth
Enterprise AI software, cloud services, libraries, and platform subscriptions layered on hardware.
Business model and strategy
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.
NVIDIA
How it makes money
NVIDIA is a fabless chip and systems company: it designs GPUs, CPUs, networking and software, and outsources manufacturing mainly to TSMC. Data Center is the core business, at $193.7B of FY2026 revenue (about 90%) and $89.0B of the $96.2B earned in Q2 FY2027.
Growth strategy
NVIDIA wants to sell the whole AI factory, not just accelerators. It ships a new architecture roughly every year: Blackwell, then Blackwell Ultra, then Vera Rubin, which reached full production in mid-2026. Each rack combines GPUs, Vera CPUs, NVLink, Spectrum-6 switches and BlueField DPUs.
Competitive advantage
NVIDIA's lead comes from three things working together. CUDA has been in use since 2006 and much of the AI software stack is tuned for it. NVIDIA sells full systems that tie compute, NVLink and networking into one rack. Its scale also gets it priority access to TSMC wafers and high-bandwidth memory.
Questions about Cerebras vs NVIDIA
Which company has higher revenue — Cerebras Systems Inc. or NVIDIA Corporation?
Cerebras Systems Inc. reported $510.0M (FY2025), while NVIDIA Corporation reported $215.9B (FY2026). By last reported revenue, NVIDIA Corporation is the larger business, with Cerebras Systems Inc. reporting a smaller revenue base. Note: these are from different fiscal years and are not a direct like-for-like comparison.
What is the market cap of Cerebras Systems Inc. vs NVIDIA Corporation?
Cerebras Systems Inc.'s market capitalisation stands at $46.3B, while NVIDIA Corporation's is $5.45T. NVIDIA Corporation carries the higher market valuation, reflecting investors' expectations of its future earnings power relative to Cerebras Systems Inc..
Which is more financially efficient — Cerebras Systems Inc. or NVIDIA Corporation?
Cerebras Systems Inc. generates $720k / employee in revenue per employee, while NVIDIA Corporation generates $5.14M / employee. NVIDIA Corporation 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 Cerebras Systems Inc. and NVIDIA Corporation make money?
Cerebras Systems Inc. and NVIDIA Corporation generate revenue in fundamentally different ways. Cerebras Systems Inc.: Cerebras makes money in two ways. NVIDIA Corporation: NVIDIA is a fabless chip and systems company: it designs GPUs, CPUs, networking and software, and outsources manufacturing mainly to TSMC.
Which company is valued higher relative to revenue — Cerebras Systems Inc. or NVIDIA Corporation?
On a price-to-sales (P/S) basis, Cerebras Systems Inc. trades at 90.8x P/S and NVIDIA Corporation at 25.2x P/S. Cerebras Systems Inc. commands a higher revenue multiple, typically indicating that investors expect faster growth or higher future margins compared to NVIDIA Corporation. A higher multiple is not inherently better — it may also signal that the stock is priced for perfection.
Is Cerebras Systems Inc. bigger than NVIDIA Corporation?
By last reported revenue, NVIDIA Corporation ($215.9B (FY2026)) 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 Cerebras vs NVIDIA overview