Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman Talks Data Center Capacity

Summary

Bloomberg Talks Podcast Summary

Episode: Cerebras CEO Andrew Feldman Talks Data Center Capacity
Date: August 13, 2026
Host: Bloomberg (various, including Francine Lacqua)
Guest: Andrew Feldman, CEO of Cerebras

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Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth conversation with Andrew Feldman, CEO of Cerebras, following its quarterly earnings report. Feldman addresses the company’s financial performance, the rise of its cloud compute business, ongoing challenges with data center capacity, and strategic moves including a collaboration with AMD. The discussion is critical for anyone interested in the evolving AI hardware and cloud infrastructure landscape.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Cerebras’ Dual Business Model

• Compute Capacity Rentals:
  Feldman details how Cerebras rents out compute capacity, a business model thriving amidst growing demand for AI infrastructure.
  • “There’s a huge business of renting out compute capacity... It is a very profitable business.” (Andrew Feldman, 01:12)
• Hardware Sales:
  The company also sells its AI hardware to customers who run their own operations or rent out compute.

2. Explosive Growth in First Party Cloud

• The first-party cloud, where Cerebras designs, manufactures, and operates its own data centers, grew 281% year over year.
  • “That part of the business was up 281% year over year. Huge growth... We control the data centers.” (Andrew Feldman, 01:35)
• Feldman notes this business began as a means to demonstrate Cerebras’ technology without shipping hardware to clients.

3. Data Center Capacity: Ongoing Bottleneck

• Some hardware customers cannot receive shipments due to lack of available data center capacity.
  • “Some of our customers didn’t have data centers available so we were able to deliver less to them. Right now, data centers are a challenge for everybody.” (Andrew Feldman, 02:23)
• Cerebras focused on ramping its own data centers to meet demand.

4. Accounting Nuances and Perception

• Revenue in the hardware division appears lower than it actually is, due to accounting required for customer warrants (GAAP adjustments).
  • “One of our large hardware customers had some warrants... subtracted from revenue in GAAP accounting. It made the numbers look a little smaller than they were.” (Andrew Feldman, 04:27)

5. Massive Backlog and Pipeline

• The company is sitting on a $25.4B backlog.
  • “We’ve got 25.4 billion in backlog.” (Andrew Feldman, 04:55)
• 600 megawatts of data center capacity are now live; the pipeline is in the gigawatts.
• Feldman forecasts revenues will more than triple next year, with aggressive expansion planned.
  • “We expect our revenue to more than triple next year... We beat guidance and we beat consensus...” (Andrew Feldman, 05:12)

6. Supply Chain and Manufacturing Expansion

• Cerebras is boosting chip manufacturing capacity by over 10x this year, partnering with companies like Sanmina and Rocket EMS.
• TSMC is the key semiconductor supplier, with committed capacity for growth.
  • “We will this year increase manufacturing capacity by more than 10x... Our partner is TSMC and they have assured us supply that will support our growth.” (Andrew Feldman, 06:40)

7. Stock Volatility and Focus on Long-Term Investors

• At recording, shares were down 14% (biggest drop since June).
• Feldman acknowledges lock-up expiries affecting stock but reiterates focus on long-term results.
  • “There are lockups that are expiring... Those aren’t the investors we’re focused on. We’re focused on long term investors.” (Andrew Feldman, 08:04)
  • “When you guide to more than a triple next year... We’re trying to speak to people who want to be with us on this ride...” (Andrew Feldman, 08:04)

8. Collaboration with AMD

• Progress has been fast between Cerebras and AMD engineering teams, building on historic relationships.
  • “Lisa Su and Mark Papermaster... acquired my last company and I had an opportunity to work with them for several years. We have a good relationship there and we have disaggregated solutions running in our labs.” (Andrew Feldman, 09:13)
• Joint solutions (disaggregated compute) are already in labs; first deployments will roll out in Q4.
• There is clear customer demand for this combined solution, which optimally balances speed and throughput.
  • “Disaggregated solution provides the best of both worlds. It allows GPUs to go faster... and Cerebras, which is really good at speed...” (Andrew Feldman, 09:50)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “Some of our customers didn’t have data centers available so we were able to deliver less to them. And so right now, data centers are a challenge for everybody.” — Andrew Feldman (02:23)
• “We have a pipeline of gigawatts of additional capacity... We are ahead of plan.” — Andrew Feldman (05:12)
• “We’re focused on delivering returns through investing in our people, in our technology, that will play out over years.” — Andrew Feldman (08:04)
• “Disaggregated solution provides the best of both worlds... and that gives you both the economics, which is throughput, and the customer experience, which is speed.” — Andrew Feldman (09:50)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Business Model Overview: 01:12 – 02:54
• Cloud Growth & Data Center Challenges: 01:35 – 03:09
• Hardware Revenue Accounting: 04:10 – 04:45
• Capacity & Growth Forecasts: 05:12 – 06:30
• Supply Chain and Manufacturing: 06:40 – 07:44
• Stock Volatility & Investor Focus: 07:44 – 09:02
• AMD Collaboration Details: 09:02 – 10:21

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Conclusion

Andrew Feldman’s insights clarify Cerebras’ strategy and the challenges it faces as it tries to scale both its cloud compute rentals and AI hardware business. Despite short-term share volatility, the company is executing aggressively on manufacturing, data center deployment, and strategic partnerships (notably with AMD). Feldman’s confidence in backlogs, future revenue growth, and engineering advancements paints a bullish outlook for Cerebras as a transformative AI infrastructure player.

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For listeners interested in technology trends, AI computing, and the future of cloud infrastructure, this episode is a valuable, candid update straight from one of the industry’s leading executives.

Transcript

[Narrator/Commercial Announcer]

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[Francine Lacqua]

Bloomberg

[Narrator/Commercial Announcer]

Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News

[Interviewer/Host]

okay, for just the second time since its ipo, Cerebrus reported quarterly earnings yesterday after the closing bell, offering some investors growth that was slower than anticipated. Shares down 13.4%. I think that's on track for the biggest drop since the last week of June. Cerebra CEO Andrew Feldman joins us now. The first thing that I learned was there is a business renting out compute capacity that's still there. Could you give me a back story on that? Andrew?

[Andrew Feldman]

Oh, of course. There's a huge business of renting out compute capacity. I think it is, it's what the, the neoclouds do. It's what the hyperscalers do. It is a, it's a very profitable business.

[Interviewer/Host]

And is it outpacing the growth from the business of selling the hardware direct to others?

[Andrew Feldman]

Well, we have two parts of our business. We have a first party cloud. That means we design, manufacture and deploy equipment in our own data centers and we rent it out to our customers. That part of the business was up 281% year over year. Huge growth, huge growth on that part of the business. We control the data centers. There was another part of our business where we sell our, our AI hardware to customers who want to do the exact same thing, who want to deploy the equipment and either use it for themselves or break it up into little pieces and sell the compute to various customers.

[Linda Hill]

Right.

[Andrew Feldman]

Those customers, we call that our hardware business. We're selling hardware for their premise. And in, in Q2, some of our customers didn't have data centers available so we were able to deliver less to them. And so right now, data centers are a challenge for everybody. We had some, we were able to deploy them for our, our own use and for the use of our cloud customers, our first party cloud customers. And so that business is absolutely ripping.

[Interviewer/Host]

We're live on Bloomberg Television and radio with Cerebral CEO Andrew Feldman. And the reason I asked for the back story on that is that that cloud business was born out of needing to build data center capacity to test the technology. Worked. It seems to be working.

[Andrew Feldman]

It was, you know, we, we wanted to be able to provide demonstrations to customers without having to move hardware to, to their, to their facilities. We didn't have a hyperscale customer at that time. And so there need to find a way to deliver compute services to people who didn't have a data center, didn't have a way to otherwise enjoy our, our, our blisteringly fast AI hardware. And so we set it up at first for ourselves and then for demonstrations. And there was so much demand on it over time that it's become a big business for us. And last quarter Q2 it was an extraordinary business for us and we expect it to continue to grow at tremend now even though now we have hyperscale customers like us, now that we have frontier labs like OpenAI, that business continues to grow at exceptional rates.

[Interviewer/Host]

Okay, the hardware business, there is some confusion out there. You report on a core basis which showed that the hardware division was up. Right? On a gap or non core basis it would be otherwise. Just explain the story for the hardware business.

[Andrew Feldman]

The story is one of our, one of our large hardware customers had some warrants and those warrants are subtracted from revenue. The value of those warrants are subtracted from revenue in GAAP accounting. And so it made the numbers look a little smaller than they were.

[Interviewer/Host]

Actually demand is great. It's there, there is a backlog we know about.

[Andrew Feldman]

We've got 25.4 billion in backlog.

[Interviewer/Host]

So, so here is the data that people are really searching for with Cerebras which is how can you get the capacity in place faster both on your own data centers or to get the hardware into the hands of customers? For that.

[Andrew Feldman]

That's a fair question. What we said to on our call yesterday is that we had signed up or had already live 600 megawatts of, of capacity and that we would have, that we had a pipeline of, of gigawatts of additional capacity. And what we said was that we expect our revenue to more than triple next year. And so I think we have been executing at a tremendous rate. You know, adding 600 megawatts in, in several months, six or seven months is no small feat. And we will add more, add vastly more in the months to come. And so I think we are ahead of plan. We, we beat guidance and we beat consensus on, on the things we, we, on our, on our core business, on core revenue, core gross margins and beat by a lot on core operating margins and then we guided a big raise so for 20, 27 and 28. So we feel, we feel really good about the business and are proud of of last quarter's results.

[Interviewer/Host]

Andrew, what are the biggest factors on the supply chain side or on the operations side that are impacting your ability to deploy that capacity?

[Andrew Feldman]

So there are several things you need to do on the supply chain. Right. First we just talked about data centers. You need a place to put your equipment so you can build the cloud that you can deliver to your customers. Walking back upstream, you need manufacturing capacity and we've expanded our, our capacity by partnering with electronics and San Mina and Rocket ems. We will this year increase manufacturing capacity by more than 10x. Walking further back upstream, you have to work with, with your fab partner. Our partner is TSMC and they have assured us supply that will support our growth. And so we've systematically worked each of these components in a, in a field we call capacity to have more chips, more manufacturing capacity, more data centers to put these chips to build the, to build the cloud offering.

[Interviewer/Host]

The stock's down 14% right now as you and I are talking. You know, since the IPO it's, it's performed. I think the Stock was up 42% after from TSD's close. Is lock up expiry a factor here? You know we talked earlier in the program about space X's lock up and the mechanics of that. Would you say that you see an impact of that in your case?

[Andrew Feldman]

We do. There are lockups that are, that are expiring and there are people who, who invest against those. Those aren't, those aren't the investors where that we're focused on. We're focused on long term investors. We're focused on delivering returns through investing in our people in our technology that will, that will play out over years. And when you, when you guide to more than a triple next year and say that 28 is going to be going to be giant and 29 as well. We're trying to speak to people who want to be with us on this ride and who want to be in the air in the AI business and want, want alternatives to, to, to, to say in video and that's who we're talking to.

[Interviewer/Host]

Andrew, I appreciate it's only been a few weeks since the this was announced and you were on the show but how's it going with AMD engineering teams already working together? Have you moved quickly on that?

[Andrew Feldman]

I enjoyed that conversation when you had me on your show a few weeks ago. I appreciate that. And it is, you know, Lisa Su and Mark Papermaster, they acquired my last company and I had an opportunity to work with them for several years and I enjoyed it a great deal. We have a good relationship there and we have disaggregated solutions running in our labs. We are, we have close engineering relationships. These are our talented engineers on both sides working extremely hard. And we will have deployments in the

[Interviewer/Host]

fourth quarter and very quickly. There was customer demand after the announcement.

[Andrew Feldman]

There is enormous customer demand. Disaggregated solution provides the best of both Worlds. It allows GPUs to go faster. GPUs are good at throughput and not so good at speed. They allow GPUs to go faster and Cerebras, which is really good at speed and we can improve in throughput. And so the disaggregated solution gives a faster, high throughput solution. And that gives you both the economics, which is throughput, and the customer experience, which is speed.

[Interviewer/Host]

Cerebra CEO Andrew Feldman back on Bloomberg Tech, thank you very much indeed.

[Francine Lacqua]

Next week on Leaders with me, Francine Lacqua. I speak with Harvard Business School Professor Linda Hill about what CEOs need to know to be successful.

[Linda Hill]

It really is not about them. It is about the organization, about how

[Francine Lacqua]

to lead in the age of AI.

[Linda Hill]

That requires a lot of confidence and

[Francine Lacqua]

why great leaders embrace conflict.

[Linda Hill]

You need to amplify difference.

[Francine Lacqua]

Listen and watch Leaders the Podcast with me, Francine LaCqua, on Bloomberg TV or wherever you get your podcasts.