Investinng.com -- Cerebras Systems Inc (NASDAQ: CBRS) shares edged higher in Friday trading after Freedom Capital upgraded the artificial intelligence chipmaker to Buy, characterizing a recent selloff triggered by concerns over its OpenAI partnership as an overdone reaction. The upgrade provides a stabilizing catalyst for the stock following a sharp retreat that pushed shares near their lowest levels since the company’s public market debut earlier this year.

Freedom Capital analyst Paul Meeks raised his rating on Cerebras to Buy from Hold while establishing a $209 price target. Shares of the company rose nearly 2% in response, recovering a portion of the steep losses incurred earlier in the week.

The upgrade directly addresses investor anxiety surrounding reports that OpenAI is utilizing Nvidia graphics processing units for the ultrafast variant of its GPT-1 Sol model. That development had sparked a 17% decline in Cerebras equity this week, as market participants questioned the long-term depth of the company’s relationship with the frontier AI laboratory.

Addressing the recent market volatility, Meeks noted that "the market's punishment of these shares is exaggerated based on what we see as a minor threat even if proven true." He added that in an environment where demand is expected to "overwhelm supply for years," Cerebras will continue to secure substantial business alongside key partners like Advanced Micro Devices and Amazon Web Services.

The fundamental thesis centers on the structural industry shift toward AI inference execution, where Cerebras’s proprietary Wafer Scale Engine technology holds a competitive performance advantage. The analyst highlighted potential hybrid deployment frameworks, such as AI disaggregation strategies where traditional GPUs handle initial prefill tasks while Cerebras hardware executes rapid output decode.

Wall Street projections currently model Cerebras revenue expanding more than threefold to $2.95 billion by 2027, up from an estimated $887 million in 2026. Financial analysts emphasize that achieving these aggressive targets will depend primarily on the company’s ability to bring new power and manufacturing capacity online on schedule and within budget.

With the stock trading at $172.50, just above its historical post-IPO floor of $169 established in May 2026, Freedom Capital views the risk-reward profile as favorable for long-term investors. The firm’s $209 price target reflects a measured valuation relative to the broader Street consensus of $292, deliberate in accounting for ongoing execution risks.

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