Shares of Cerebras Systems (CBRS.US), often referred to as a challenger to NVIDIA, rose more than 5% at the start of trading on Wednesday, aligning with broader strength in the semiconductor sector.

The stock was last trading at $224.64, though it remains down approximately 36% from its initial public offering price, with the company's market capitalization now below $50 billion.

The early gains followed a wave of positive initial coverage from several major Wall Street firms, including Morgan Stanley, UBS, Wedbush, Rosenblatt, Mizuho, Barclays, and Needham.

These firms were nearly unanimous in their bullish stance, issuing "Buy," "Outperform," or similar positive ratings, with price targets generally clustered in the range of $250 to $300.

Morgan Stanley analysts highlighted the rapidly growing demand for fast, low-latency inference as AI workloads increase, noting that Cerebras is well-positioned to capitalize on this trend.

The firm pointed to the company's substantial backlog of signed orders and power capacity agreements totaling up to 750 megawatts as key strengths preparing it to seize the opportunity.