Cathie Wood Jumps Into AI IPO Sensation

This article first appeared on GuruFocus.

Cathie Wood is wasting little time jumping into one of the hottest new AI stocks on Wall Street after ARK Invest loaded up on newly public Cerebras Systems (NASDAQ:CBRS) following the company’s explosive Nasdaq debut.

According to ARK’s latest trading disclosures, the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) and ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) bought a combined 105,616 shares of Cerebras on Thursday. Based on Wednesday’s closing price, the position was worth roughly $32.8 million.

The move came right after Cerebras delivered one of the wildest IPO debuts the market has seen in years. Shares opened at $350 after pricing at $185, briefly surged as high as $385, and triggered a volatility halt before ending the day at $311, still up more than 68% from the IPO price. The stock added another 1.5% in premarket trading on Friday.

The Sunnyvale-based company, which builds AI chips and large-scale AI infrastructure systems, sold 30 million shares in the offering. Demand was so intense that orders reportedly exceeded available shares by more than 20 times. Cerebras had originally planned to price the IPO between $150 and $160 before lifting the final price to $185 amid surging investor appetite tied to the AI boom.

For Cathie Wood, the purchase fits directly into ARK’s long-running strategy of aggressively backing disruptive technologies early, especially in artificial intelligence. The bet also shows how investor enthusiasm around AI infrastructure plays continues expanding beyond Nvidia (NVDA) and the traditional mega cap names dominating the sector.