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Cerebras Scores With CrowdStrike Deal: What it Means for Investors

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Key Takeaways

  • Cerebras will power Falcon AIDR with wafer-scale inference for real-time threat detection.
  • The deal expands Cerebras into cybersecurity and strengthens its enterprise AI infrastructure position.
  • First-quarter revenues rose 94% to $193.4 million, while 2026 core guidance increased to $855-$865 million.

Cerebras Systems (CBRS - Free Report) announced on Thursday (July 22) that it has inked a partnership with CrowdStrike (CRWD - Free Report) , under which the latter will leverage CBRS’ wafer-scale inference technology to help power Falcon AI Detection and Response (AIDR). This will enable larger AI security models to operate at machine speed for real-time threat detection. At the same time, Cerebras has standardized on the CrowdStrike Falcon platform to secure its own operations, underscoring the strategic nature of the collaboration.

Cerebras’ latest partnership with CrowdStrike marks another important validation of its high-speed AI inference platform and expands its presence into one of the fastest-growing enterprise AI markets — cybersecurity. The partnership reinforces Cerebras’ strategy of targeting latency-sensitive AI inference workloads, where response time directly impacts business outcomes. The company has emphasized that “fast tokens are more valuable tokens” because speed improves productivity and enables new AI applications, which are necessary for cybersecurity applications.

The CrowdStrike collaboration broadens Cerebras’ customer base beyond frontier AI model developers into enterprise software. This diversification complements the company’s recently announced multi-year OpenAI agreement worth more than $20 billion and its Amazon Web Services partnership, which are already driving strong commercial momentum. In the first quarter of 2026, revenues increased 94% year over year to $193.4 million, including 178% growth in cloud and other services revenues, reflecting accelerating adoption of Cerebras’ inference platform. CBRS raised its 2026 core revenue guidance to $855-$865 million, indicating 69% year-over-year growth at the midpoint.

The CrowdStrike partnership strengthens Cerebras’ positioning as an enterprise AI infrastructure provider rather than solely a hardware vendor. Cloud and services revenues are becoming an increasingly important growth driver for the company. Remaining performance obligations reached approximately $25 billion at the end of first-quarter, largely supported by long-term AI infrastructure contracts. The addition of cybersecurity to CBRS’ portfolio of inference use cases expands the company’s addressable market, thereby driving top-line growth over the long term.

Cerebras Faces Tough Competition

Cerebras is facing stiff competition from the likes of CoreWeave (CRWV - Free Report) and Broadcom (AVGO - Free Report) in the AI infrastructure domain. 

CoreWeave is pursuing one of the industry's largest AI infrastructure expansions. In partnership with NVIDIA, the company plans to build more than 5 gigawatts (GW) of AI factory capacity by 2030 while adopting multiple generations of NVIDIA AI platforms. It also recently expanded its European footprint through new AI cloud deployments in Stockholm, Sweden, powered by renewable energy, and signed a $21 billion long-term AI infrastructure agreement with Meta.

Broadcom has been benefiting from rising AI revenues, driven by strong demand for XPUs. AI semiconductor revenues reached a record $10.8 billion in the fiscal second quarter, suggesting a 143% year-over-year surge. Broadcom expects it to rise to $16 billion in the fiscal third quarter, indicating more than 200% year-over-year growth. AVGO’s management disclosed that AI semiconductor bookings exceeded $30 billion during the fiscal second quarter, nearly three times quarterly AI shipments. Remaining Performance Obligations reached $164.6 billion, including commitments under new custom AI accelerator contracts. These agreements provide exceptional long-term revenue visibility.

CBRS’ Share Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Cerebras shares have jumped 15.3% in the past month, outperforming the broader Zacks Business Services sector’s return of 2.7%.

CBRS Stock’s Price Performance

 

Zacks Investment Research
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

 

Cerebras stock is trading at a forward 12-month price/sales of 24.62X, higher than its median of 24.22X. CBRS has a Value Score of D.

CBRS’ Valuation

 

Zacks Investment Research
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

 

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 loss is pegged at 89 cents per share, narrower than the loss of $1.14 per share over the past 30 days.
 

 

Cerebras currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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