Nvidia is still the main supplier for AI hardware in early 2026. But Cerebras Systems is about to go public with a chip that’s 56 times bigger than Nvidia’s latest. Nvidia pulled in $215 billion last year, a record. Now, though, it’s out of China completely because of export bans. That has investors looking at new options, including companies like Broadcom that focus on networking.
Key Takeaways
- Nvidia still owns the biggest slice of the AI GPU market. But in China, its share crashed from 95% to zero this year.
- Cerebras Systems is planning a big IPO next week. Its Wafer-Scale Engine (WSE-3) packs in 4 trillion transistors.
- Broadcom is now a major player in AI networking. Almost all internet traffic runs through its hardware at some point.
- Big US tech firms like Microsoft and Meta are set to spend more than $650 billion on AI infrastructure this year. That’s a huge number, even for them.
Nvidia, based in California, still powers most global AI workloads with its Blackwell and soon-to-launch Rubin chips. But 2026 isn’t a one-horse race anymore. The US government tightened export rules, so CEO Jensen Huang says Nvidia now expects zero revenue from China. That market used to bring in almost $20 billion a year. Now, local companies like Huawei are stepping in, and investors are hunting for ‘non-GPU’ options to spread their bets.
Cerebras Systems is getting a lot of attention. Instead of slicing up silicon wafers into smaller chips, they use the whole wafer for one massive processor. Their WSE-3 chip has 900,000 AI-focused cores and 2,625 times the memory bandwidth of Nvidia’s B200. In tests, the Cerebras CS-3 system can answer some large language models more than twice as fast as Nvidia hardware. They just landed a $20 billion deal with OpenAI. That says a lot about where big AI companies are looking for their next round of compute power.
Broadcom is also key in the 2026 AI market. Nvidia builds the brains, but Broadcom connects everything together. Its Ethernet switches and custom AI accelerators are what let thousands of GPUs work as one. Analysts think Broadcom’s AI revenue will double this year, hitting over $8 billion. So if you want in on the AI boom but don’t want to pick a winner in the chip race, Broadcom looks like a safer bet.
this is a bit tricky. The Nifty 50 doesn’t really cover high-end chip design. So, a lot of people are opening international trading accounts to buy fractional shares of Nvidia and the new challengers. Nvidia is still a buy for many analysts, thanks to its 50% yearly earnings growth. But with Cerebras about to go public, there’s a new shot at the AI inference market, which could hit $255 billion by 2030.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. Is Nvidia still a good stock to buy in 2026?
A. Yes, most analysts maintain a buy rating on Nvidia due to its dominant role in data center hardware and a record revenue of $215 billion. Its new Rubin platform is expected to keep it ahead of most competitors in raw performance.
Q. What makes Cerebras a threat to Nvidia?
A. Cerebras builds chips that are significantly larger than Nvidia’s, allowing entire AI models to fit on a single piece of silicon. This reduces the time it takes for data to move between chips, leading to much faster processing speeds for tasks like AI chat responses.
Q. How does Broadcom fit into the AI market?
A. Broadcom specializes in networking chips and custom accelerators. Because massive AI models require thousands of chips to work together, Broadcom’s high-speed switching technology is a requirement for the data centers that companies like Google and Amazon are building.
