Cerebras vs Modal

By valuation, Cerebras is the larger company at $8.1B versus $1.1B — a 7.4x difference. Size can also be measured by team: Cerebras employs 400 people while Modal has 30 employees.

Cerebras has raised more in total funding at $1.8B, compared to Modal's $111M — a gap of $1.7B. Combined, the two companies have completed 8 known funding rounds.

Cerebras leads with an Awaira Score of 79/100, while Modal sits at 71/100. That 8-point gap reflects real differences in funding, scale, and traction — it's not a vanity metric.

Cerebras was founded by Andrew Feldman in 2016. Modal was founded by Erik Bernhardsson in 2021. Visit each company's profile on Awaira for a full founder biography.

Cerebras: Cerebras Systems designs and manufactures specialized processors for artificial intelligence and machine learning applications. Founded in 2016, the company develops custom silicon chips optimized for training and inference of large language models and deep learning workloads. Its flagship product, the Cerebras Wafer Scale Engine (WSE), is one of the largest computer chips ever built, integrating hundreds of billions of transistors on a single wafer to deliver high compute density and memory bandwidth for AI workloads. The WSE architecture prioritizes parallel processing capabilities and reduced latency for neural network training, distinguishing it from traditional GPU-based approaches used by competitors like NVIDIA. Cerebras addresses the infrastructure layer of AI computing, targeting organizations training large-scale models. The company has secured substantial venture funding, indicating strong investor confidence in custom AI chip development. Cerebras has been pursuing an IPO and has attracted investment from firms including Tiger Global, Benchmark, and Altimeter Capital. Its competitive positioning centers on delivering superior compute efficiency and performance-per-watt compared to conventional accelerators. The company targets both cloud service providers and enterprises with significant AI computing requirements. Cerebras represents the emerging wave of AI-specific chip designers competing in the rapidly expanding AI infrastructure market, though adoption remains limited compared to established GPU manufacturers. Cerebras builds wafer-scale processors specifically engineered for large language model training, offering an alternative architecture to traditional GPU-based AI computing infrastructure. Modal: Modal is an AI infrastructure company founded in 2021 that provides cloud computing tools for machine learning and artificial intelligence applications. The platform enables developers to build, deploy, and scale AI models with reduced infrastructure complexity. Modal's core offering centers on serverless computing infrastructure specifically optimized for AI workloads, allowing users to run GPU-intensive tasks without managing underlying hardware directly. The company positions itself within the broader AI infrastructure category, competing alongside platforms like Replicate, Lambda Labs, and cloud providers' AI services. Modal's approach focuses on simplifying the deployment pipeline for machine learning models, enabling developers to move from development to production environments more efficiently. The platform supports various frameworks and use cases including LLM inference, image generation, and general machine learning tasks. Founded in 2021, Modal operates at the Seed stage with total funding of $20 million and a valuation of $0.1 billion. The company benefits from growing demand for accessible AI infrastructure as organizations scale machine learning workloads. Modal's customer base includes AI developers and teams building applications that require computational resources beyond typical cloud offerings. The competitive landscape remains fragmented, with multiple players addressing different aspects of AI infrastructure. Modal's growth trajectory reflects broader market expansion in AI tooling and infrastructure services. Modal addresses the infrastructure gap between AI research and production deployment by offering serverless computing optimized specifically for GPU-intensive machine learning workloads.

Cerebras got there first, launching in 2016 — that's 5 years of extra runway. Modal didn't arrive until 2021. In AI, that kind of head start means more training data, deeper customer relationships, and a bigger talent moat.

Cerebras has about 400 employees; Modal has about 30. A bigger team usually means more revenue or heavier VC backing, but in AI, small teams can build at massive scale.

Yes — they're direct rivals. Both Cerebras and Modal compete in AI Infrastructure, targeting many of the same buyers. If you're evaluating one, you should be looking at the other.