What is Cerebras Inference?
Cerebras provides the fastest cloud LLM inference available — 2000+ tokens per second for Llama 3.3 70B, roughly 10x faster than traditional GPU inference. Built on Cerebras' custom Wafer-Scale Engine (WSE) chips, it delivers near-instant responses. OpenAI-compatible API means you can swap in Cerebras as a drop-in replacement for any OpenAI-based application.
Answer-Ready: Cerebras is the fastest cloud LLM inference — 2000+ tokens/sec for Llama 70B (10x faster than GPU). Custom wafer-scale chips. OpenAI-compatible API for drop-in replacement. Supports Llama 3.3, Qwen 2.5, DeepSeek. Free tier available.
Best for: Applications needing ultra-low latency AI responses. Works with: Any OpenAI-compatible tool, Claude Code (via Bifrost), LangChain. Setup time: Under 2 minutes.
Speed Comparison
| Provider | Llama 3.3 70B Speed | Relative |
|---|---|---|
| Cerebras | 2,100 tok/s | 10x |
| Groq | 750 tok/s | 3.5x |
| Together AI | 400 tok/s | 2x |
| AWS Bedrock | 200 tok/s | 1x |
| OpenAI (GPT-4o) | 150 tok/s | 0.7x |
Supported Models
| Model | Context | Speed |
|---|---|---|
| Llama 3.3 70B | 8K | 2,100 tok/s |
| Llama 3.1 8B | 8K | 4,500 tok/s |
| Qwen 2.5 32B | 8K | 2,800 tok/s |
| DeepSeek R1 | 8K | 1,800 tok/s |
Features
1. OpenAI-Compatible API
# Drop-in replacement — just change base_url
client = OpenAI(base_url="https://api.cerebras.ai/v1", api_key="...")2. Streaming
stream = client.chat.completions.create(
model="llama-3.3-70b",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Write a story"}],
stream=True,
)
for chunk in stream:
print(chunk.choices[0].delta.content, end="")3. Tool Calling
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model="llama-3.3-70b",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "What's the weather?"}],
tools=[{
"type": "function",
"function": {
"name": "get_weather",
"parameters": {"type": "object", "properties": {"city": {"type": "string"}}},
},
}],
)Pricing
| Tier | Requests | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 30 req/min | $0 |
| Developer | Higher limits | Pay-as-you-go |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom |
FAQ
Q: Why is it so fast? A: Cerebras uses custom wafer-scale chips (WSE-3) — a single chip larger than a GPU that eliminates memory bandwidth bottlenecks.
Q: Can I use it with Claude Code? A: Not directly (Claude Code uses Claude). Use Bifrost CLI to route Haiku-tier requests to Cerebras for speed.
Q: How does quality compare? A: Same models, same quality. Cerebras runs the exact same Llama/Qwen weights — only inference speed differs.