Cathie Wood Cuts AMD Loose While Sinking Millions Into Cerebras’s Heavy Hardware Bet
(SeaPRwire) – By: Reginald Vance
Market sentiment around artificial intelligence infrastructure is hitting a severe physical wall, and portfolio adjustments from high-profile growth managers reveal deep anxiety over hardware monetization loops. Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest executed a telling reallocation on September 9, 2026, dropping massive holdings in mainstream compute giants while doubling down on speculative manufacturing and nascent cloud architectures.
The fund offloaded 19,491 shares of Advanced Micro Devices through its ARKK ETF, capturing nearly $9.9 million in liquidity and extending a multi-day selloff pattern for the chip designer. Simultaneously, ARK trimmed its Palantir Technologies position by selling 38,395 shares worth $6.5 million, alongside offloading 68,759 shares of Tempus AI valued at $4.4 million. On the acquisition side, the firm injected $3.4 million into 575,700 shares of electric air taxi developer Archer Aviation, signaling a continued speculative push into urban air mobility despite mounting capital expenditure pressures across the sector.
The core friction point centers on ARK’s relentless accumulation of Cerebras Systems, exemplified by an August 25 purchase of 93,290 shares worth $17.2 million. Cerebras stock has endured a brutal 32.4% correction since its May 14 debut, compounded by an 8% monthly dip following profit-taking after the August 18 Supernova event. Fundamental metrics remain a mixed bag: Q2 revenue surged 103% year-over-year to $209.9 million, with cloud revenue skyrocketing 287% to $127.7 million. However, core gross margins compressed to 40.6% from 46.5% due to high-cost cloud customer rent-back overheads. Management insists this margin decay is temporary, targeting a recovery above 60% by Q4 as owned manufacturing systems come online.
With over $8.6 billion in cash and marketable securities alongside an unused $850 million credit facility, Cerebras boasts a heavily insulated balance sheet backed by over 600 megawatts of scheduled data center capacity through 2027 and a quadrupled manufacturing footprint. Wall Street remains largely bullish with eight out of eleven analysts rating the stock a Strong Buy and pointing to a $283.91 average price target. Yet, as ARK balances these hardware plays with parallel buys in Beam Therapeutics, CRISPR Therapeutics, and Robinhood alongside exits from Twist Bioscience and 10X Genomics, the broader semiconductor valuation cycle faces an unavoidable reckoning over manufacturing yield costs and real-world infrastructure absorption limits.
Author bio: Reginald Vance, a venture partner specializing in semiconductor valuation and advanced materials, tracks capital allocation efficiency across high-growth compute infrastructure markets.