Cerebras Systems just executed the biggest IPO of the year, raising $5.55 billion and watching its shares surge up to 89% in its trading debut. The massive $40 billion valuation proves Wall Street’s insatiable appetite for AI hardware alternatives to Nvidia is nowhere near slowing down.
Big Tech is ruthlessly pivoting to an “agentic AI-first” operating model, and the tech labor market is paying the immediate price. Across the industry, major players like Cloudflare, Meta, and Cisco have announced massive workforce reductions—with Cloudflare cutting a staggering 20% of staff—explicitly citing AI efficiency gains and the need to fund exorbitant generative AI infrastructure costs. This bloodbath pushed IT sector unemployment up to 3.8% in April, signaling a grim, structural realignment where corporations are aggressively prioritizing automated tools and expensive compute over human headcount.