3 AI Stocks Born From Recent IPOs That Could Be Bigger Than Their Hype

While investors are still waiting on the highly anticipated IPOs for OpenAI and Anthropic, several other AI companies have gone public in the last few years. IPOs can be volatile in the early going, especially when they have a lot of hype, but there are some interesting investment opportunities among these AI stocks.

Among AI stocks from recent IPOs, three in particular look like long-term winners based on their roles in the AI infrastructure build-out.

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1. CoreWeave

CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV) went public on March 28, 2025, at a price of $40 per share. Its stock peaked at $183.58 in June 2025, but it traded at about $110 at the end of May -- still a winner for investors who bought around the IPO, but well off the all-time high.

CoreWeave is a neocloud, meaning a cloud provider that operates data centers with AI GPUs it rents to customers in need of computing power. The company currently has 43 data centers with over 250,000 Nvidia GPUs.

Revenue is growing rapidly for CoreWeave. It posted a record $2.1 billion in sales in the first quarter of 2026, a 112% year-over-year increase. CoreWeave's numbers are even more impressive looking forward. It's forecasting $12 billion to $13 billion in revenue in 2026, and it has a backlog of $99.4 billion.

The biggest risk with CoreWeave is its debt load. Current and non-current debt totaled $35.1 billion at the end of Q1 2026. This is par for the course, as running AI data centers is an expensive business. But it means CoreWeave incurs substantial interest charges ($536 million in the first quarter) and needs continued revenue growth to justify its capital expenditures.

2. Cerebras

Cerebras (NASDAQ: CBRS) is the most recent AI company to go public, debuting at $185 per share on May 14, but quickly surging to $386.34. The stock has since declined to $233 through May.

What makes Cerebras a unique and exciting AI investment is its Wafer-Scale Engine (WSE). The WSE is the largest and most powerful AI chip, with 4 trillion transistors. The advantage is that communication is faster on-chip than across chips, so a larger chip leads to much faster processing.

Potential investors should be aware of several risk factors. Cerebras is in a highly competitive space, and the company's WSE chips aren't widely adopted yet, like Nvidia GPUs and custom silicon. Even though Cerebras has grown revenue quite a bit, including 76% year over year to $510 million in 2025, it's extremely expensive, currently trading at 100 times trailing sales.

3. Nebius Group

Nebius Group (NASDAQ: NBIS) isn't exactly a recent IPO. It used to be known as Yandex N.V., parent company to a Russian tech company, and it started trading on the Nasdaq in 2011. The Nasdaq suspended trading of Yandex in 2022 due to sanctions against Russia, so the company restructured, sold its Russian assets, and rebranded as Nebius Group. The Nasdaq allowed it to resume trading on Oct. 21, 2024.

Like CoreWeave, Nebius is a neocloud company with software optimized for AI workloads, and its recent numbers have been strong. Revenue for Q1 2026 was $399 million, a 684% year-over-year increase. It's guiding for $3.0 to $3.4 billion in revenue this year, which would be a huge jump from 2025, when it made $529.8 million.

On the downside, Nebius is burning cash, and it raised its 2026 capex guidance to $20 billion to $25 billion. It also trades at 77 times trailing earnings, so you pay a premium for it, although it could be well worth the money if AI computing demand keeps rising.

It's worth reiterating that these are three volatile stocks dependent on high AI spending. I wouldn't overcommit to them, but if you're bullish on AI, then these companies could be worth a reasonably sized investment.

Lyle Daly has positions in Nebius Group and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.