BZAI

Image source: The Motley Fool. Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026, at 5 p.m. ET Chief Executive Officer-Dinakar Munagala Chief Financial Officer-Harminder Sehmi Chief Revenue Officer-Stephen Patak Operator: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining Blaize's Second Quarter 2026 Conference Call. Before management begins the prepared remarks, we would like to remind everyone that earlier today, Blaize Holdings issued a press release announcing its Second Quarter 2026 Results. Earnings materials are available on the Investor Relations section of the Blaize Holdings website. Today's earnings call and press release reflect management's views as of today only and include statements related to the company's 2026 financial guidance, revenue, gross margin, competitive position, anticipated industry trends, market opportunities, products, and financing opportunities, all of which constitute forward-looking statements under the federal securities laws. Actual results may differ materially from those contained or implied by these forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties associated with Blaize Holdings' business. For a discussion of the material risk and other important factors that could cause the company's actual results, please refer to the company's Form 10-K and Amendment No. 1 on Form 10-K, for the year ended December 31, 2025, and our Form 10-Q for the period ending June 30, 2026, including the risk factor section therein and today's press release. Any forward-looking statements that management makes on this call are based on assumptions as of today, and other than as may be required by law, we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. During this call, management will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures should be considered as a supplement to and not a substitute for measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. For reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures discussed during this call to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please refer to today's press release. Now I would like to turn the call over to Dinakar Munagala, Chief Executive Officer of Blaize Holdings. Dinakar Munagala: Thank you, and good afternoon. With me today are Harminder Sehmi, our Chief Financial Officer, and Stephen Patak, our Chief Revenue Officer. I will start with the outlook and where the business stands. Harminder will take you through the numbers, and Stephen will cover our commercial engines. I will then have some closing remarks after the Q&A. As you saw from our earnings release this afternoon, we reduced our revenue outlook for 2026. Our full-year revenue is now expected to be between $40 million and $43 million. What that number does not show you is what we have already secured. We hold a signed agreement covering 2,000 servers worth approximately $70 million at current memory prices. Part of that converts into revenue this year. The rest is committed business we carry into 2027. Let me tell you what changed and what did not. First, several engagements have not converted into orders, including some where pilots were completed successfully. Second, other opportunities are still in progress and expected to close later than we forecast. And third, supply chain cost inflation. Memory pricing has risen materially this year and we expect that to persist. Harminder will take you through each of them along with the backlog we expect to be holding at year-end and what we have changed in how we build our expectations. Behind that number, the business is broadening. Our largest customer in China continues to generate meaningful business for us. We have opened Europe with the first purchase order for several thousand units. And activity across the Asia Pacific region has increased. Let me tell you what we are seeing because it explains both the quarter and the book behind it. The market has made up its mind this year. Building frontier AI costs more than it earns, and the gap is widening. At the same time, efficient open models are making AI cheaper to run. Value is moving from who trains the biggest model to who runs it most efficiently. The economics of inference are now the deciding factor. That is the market our architecture was designed for. And we are making real progress in it. Two market trends are converging, and we are winning in both. First is physical AI. Countries and industrial companies are putting AI into the field on vehicles, on ships, on machines, and inside their own borders and their own sites, partly for security and control of the data, but mostly because the work demands it. Speed of response, scale, places the cloud cannot reach. Next is a new generation of AI data centers built to run AI, not just to train it. Training does not go away. It changes shape into constant tuning and specialization. These sites run many models on many kinds of chips. And they're built on purpose not to depend on 1 vendor. Both are hybrid, and the operators have learned something important. Renting out GPUs is not a sustainable business. Applications and AI Services are. That makes the software that schedules and tunes the work, the layer that matters, and that is exactly where we sit. That brings me to what we are focused on most right now. The revenue that we produce and the margin we make on it. Let me take each 1. First, revenue. We earn revenue in 2 ways. 1 is our silicon and SDK designed into OEM's product, shipping inside autonomous systems, robotics, and ruggedized equipment. Once we win the design, we scale with that OEM into markets they already serve. And a proven design opens other platforms and markets for us. The other is our hybrid AI platform, a vertically integrated stack. It runs the industry applications that customers buy, built by us and by our software partners. Service providers and system integrators deliver it as a managed service. Stephen will take you through where each of them stands. Second, margin. Behind both sits AI Services, our software suite for AI inference. We expect AI Services to become an increasingly important contributor of our margin over time. Today, AI Services includes capabilities such as facial recognition. Based on requirements from active customer programs, we are developing and integrating additional capabilities, including document processing, quality grading, compliance scoring, video analytics, small language model assistance, and industry-specific services. We are also developing model optimization and orchestration capabilities intended to route workloads to the appropriate compute resource and optimize models for the underlying hardware. The goal is to give customers more output per dollar of infrastructure. They get more from what they run, and we expect to be paid for what gets them there. We intend to price it as software per rack, per megawatt, or per fleet. That brings me to this quarter. Our gross margin was 8%, reflecting a mix weighted to third-party hardware. Our branded hardware and AI Services is what we expect will shift that mix. And building it out is the work in front of us this year. Finally, onto the next generation. The deployments we are supporting today increasingly require a mixture of models and inference workloads. Serving that demand pulls us deeper into the stack, both in what we build ourselves and what we integrate from others. Based on requirements that we are seeing across current customer engagements, we are working on our next-generation AI inference product designed for production environments. We expect it to complement what we ship today and extend the same architecture to higher-performance workloads. We also intend to incorporate confidential computing capabilities to address requirements from sovereign customers. We view this plan as a staged investment and intend to pace development against customer requirements, commercial progress, and what the business can support. The platform comes first, and the next-generation product is intended to extend that platform into larger inference workloads we expect customers to deploy over the coming years. With that, I will hand it over to Harminder to take you through the outlook and the quarter. Harminder? Harminder Sehmi: Thank you, Dinakar, and good afternoon, everyone. Before I get into our second quarter results, I will address why we're revising our full-year 2026 revenue guidance, what's driving that, and how we're managing the balance sheet through this transition. Dinakar addressed the change from $130 million to a range of between $40 million and $43 million. That is a significant reduction, and I want to walk through exactly why. There are 3 primary factors behind this change. First, I would like to emphasize that while pilot programs have been successfully completed, several commercial opportunities did not materialize as we expected. We had planned on fulfilling a regular cadence of purchase orders from customers already under contract. With respect to Starshine specifically, we made the decision not to engage further until Starshine pays its outstanding balance. We have fully reserved the receivable this quarter, engaged local partners to pursue collection, and are reevaluating that commercial relationship. There is meaningful uncertainty as to whether it will progress further. Second, as we progress into the third quarter, customers are deferring follow-on orders based on their broader scaling of overall deployment of AI solutions. Opportunities are proceeding just more slowly than our prior forecast assumed. Cloud and data center customers have taken longer to qualify new technology. Certain government programs are on longer procurement timelines than expected, and regional uncertainty has pushed a smart city opportunity in the Middle East into an extended field trial. Finally, memory economics have gotten harder. DRAM and LPDDR pricing has increased materially this year as industry capacity has shifted toward High-Bandwidth Memory. Additionally, the requirement for advanced payments from suppliers has increased. We expect these supply conditions to persist. Taken together, we have raised the bar for what we are willing to include in guidance going forward. Stephen will walk through the pipeline in more detail shortly, but I want to be precise about how we built this specific number because the methodology matters as much as the figure. As mentioned, our revised guidance is between $40 million and $43 million for the full year 2026. We project backlog at December 31 this year of approximately $50 million at current memory prices. It is weighted heavily toward revenue from our largest account and based on binding non-cancellable purchase orders that we can fulfill with inventory commitments already made or planned to order. Let me explain the difference between bookings and revenue recognition. Several of the opportunities that we're currently pursuing are intended to generate bookings during 2026, but will only partially convert to recognized revenue this year, with the remainder entering backlog for future periods. Backlog for us means a committed contract or purchase order exists that we have not yet fulfilled. This guidance reflects what we currently expect to recognize as revenue in 2026, not the full value of business that we expect to book by year-end. Stephen will address where activity continues and revenue upside is in play. With continued supply chain cost inflation that we may not be able to immediately pass through and some higher-margin opportunities pushed into 2027, we now expect gross margin of 17% to 19% for the second half of the year and an adjusted EBITDA loss of $62 million to $65 million for the full year. A reduction in gross margin from lower revenue and the Starshine provision are key contributors in the increase in the loss from our prior guidance. This is offset by reductions in operating expenses and a change in the timing of payments for the next-generation chip program. Now, turning to our financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2026. Revenue was $12 million, a significant increase from $2.7 million in the prior quarter. For the first half of 2026, revenue totaled $14.7 million, compared with $3 million in the same period last year, a year-on-year increase of 390%. On NeoTensr specifically, the amount due from our fourth quarter 2025 sale has been paid in full. And the receivable associated with our second quarter 2026 sale remains within its contractual payment terms. Third and fourth quarter deliveries of our hybrid servers are being planned. Gross profit was $0.9 million, representing a gross margin of approximately 8%, compared with 58% in the first quarter. The quarter-on-quarter decline was driven by revenue mix. The second quarter consisted almost entirely of third-party server hardware, which carries constricted gross margins for Blaize. The first quarter gross margin benefited from a mix of higher-margin Blaize software and hardware plus some third-party hardware. Operating expenses for the second quarter were $31.5 million, up from $23.9 million in the prior quarter, an increase of 32%. This increase was largely driven by a $7.1 million provision for the balance of Starshine receivable, approximately $1 million additional investment into the new chip, and a $2.8 million one-time non-cash charge in a related party settlement, partially offset by a release of a prior provision in professional fees. R&D expense was $10.5 million and included stock-based compensation of $3.7 million. The increase of $0.8 million, or 7.6%, sequentially from the first quarter primarily reflected third-party intellectual property costs associated with the ongoing development of our next-generation chip. Adjusted EBITDA loss of $20.9 million, including the Starshine provision, was up $7 million compared to a loss of $13.9 million in the prior quarter. Adjusted EBITDA is largely driven by non-cash add-backs, which include stock compensation, changes in the fair value of our financial instruments, and non-cash financing charges, such as the modification of certain warrants this quarter. Moving on to our balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $36.8 million in cash, an increase of $3.6 million from the first quarter. We received $9.4 million in customer payments and generated $32.8 million in net proceeds from the equity offering completed during the quarter. Our revised growth outlook reduces the near-term working capital requirements of the business, as the significant second-half bookings and revenue ramp contemplated in our prior guidance would have necessitated significant upfront commitments to purchase memory-intensive inventory at elevated prices well in advance of customer collections. We feel it is advantageous to our shareholders to judiciously manage the supply and demand imbalances of the cost of inventory. This enables us to prudently control economics and timing trade-offs for the long run, rather than maximizing revenue at any cost. In addition, we continually review our cost structure against revenue priorities and our future roadmap. Accordingly, we are identifying further opportunities to reduce operating expenses in light of the lower guidance. The priority is to optimize cash consumption with a goal of extending our financial flexibility and preserve the core capabilities required to execute our strategy. We are exploring ways in which to leverage our customer contracts to secure non-dilutive debt financing. Additionally, we're seeking advance payments from customers to mitigate working capital demands. No financing decision has been made at this time. With that, I'll turn the call over to Stephen to discuss our pipeline and provide additional context around our outlook. Stephen? Stephen Patak: Thank you, Harminder. First, let me start by adding 1 additional comment on the quarter. Our Q2 revenue was driven by our momentum with NeoTensr, where they continue to adopt more of our solution stack as they see strong demand in their market. Second, and where I want to spend a bit of time, is the commercial picture behind the revised annual outlook Harminder described. You have to start with demand because that is the fundamental starting point. We're seeing real demand across every part of our business and it's growing. What we're working on is our ability to capture it. And we've had several changes in our go-to-market approach in order to execute more effectively. As it relates to our revised outlook, a couple of things to point out. As opportunities move closer to signed deals, our visibility into end-user demand improves, and that allows us to more effectively align supply to demand and scale the supply chain in a measured, capital-efficient way. We are already seeing this improvement, and I will come back to touch on this shortly. The rest is timing. Our customers ramp their deployments at the speed in which their own markets grow, and several ramp later than we had forecasted. Those deployments are moving now and the pace is picking up. We are also getting better at reading these cycles early, which is what improves our close rates moving forward. From a region perspective, the biggest impact we had was the Middle East, which remains uncertain. What we believe is critical moving forward is that we continue to build a broader customer and partner base so that fewer individual deals determine a quarter, and there's evidence that is working. We received our first purchase order out of Europe, where we've already shipped thousands of units. Opportunities are growing across the portfolio throughout Asia Pacific, where we have very strong partner-led engagements, and we're beginning to build a pipeline in the United States. Our pipeline and customer base is broader and more diversified than it's ever been. Next, I will touch on the 2 primary revenue engines for Blaize moving forward. First is aerial robotics and ruggedized platforms. I mentioned earlier that our focus is on building a scalable and predictable go-to-market engine, and that is exactly what this line of business gives us. These customers have demand for much higher volumes, provide monthly rolling forecasts, and provide deposits to secure inventory. Our differentiation is our architecture. We are being selected in deployments that are constrained on size, weight, power, and heat, where the customer needs sustained real-time performance inside a fixed envelope rather than peak benchmark numbers, and where they're building our SDK directly into their own product. That is a narrow set of requirements, and it's where a purpose-built accelerator, such as Blaize, does better than a general-purpose part. We are being pulled into these opportunities across every market where we have presence. Once we qualify our solutions, opportunities arise for recurring revenue. Our second revenue engine is a hybrid AI platform, which we brought to market 2 quarters ago, and is what our AI Services runs on. It lets cloud and data center providers deploy faster and open new revenue streams for their own customers through API services. We are actively pursuing several national-scale programs, each at a different stage. Facility supervision for a national food service group across thousands of sites, production quality grading for a manufacturing company, fuel retail monitoring for a national fuel network with hundreds of stations. In each of these, we are providing the platform and the models, and system integrators are handling the deployment. These engagements take time to close and are not forecasted in our current guidance. However, when they do close, we get more than just the contract. We get a proven solution that can be replicated with customers anywhere in the world. We've also found that there are opportunities to expand even further on our hybrid AI platform and to play a much broader role in new data center build-outs, including providing professional services, our AI Services suite, and advising on the AI architecture of the build. As an example, there's a national government program building out a data center in the range of 150 megawatts. Our role is in active discussion, and while there are many details to work out, the intent on both sides is to move toward binding terms. We have a second sovereign program under discussion with a similar structure and with a different government, but the same partner model. These types of engagements are much longer in nature and are also not included in any of the guidance that we've given today, but they indicate that not only does our platform work with existing customers, but also new NeoCloud build-outs as well. And although these 2 revenue engines may sound like opposites, they're actually designed to reinforce each other. Physical AI puts our silicon inside real deployments today. The hybrid platform is how we take that into vertical services that enterprises and governments are asking for. And over time, we expect those same customers become the consumption base for the AI data centers of the future that we intend to help enable. That is where our focus is. With that, operator, we're ready for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Kevin Cassidy of Rosenblatt Securities. Kevin Cassidy: I guess, just to understand -- could you help us understand a little better about the customer delaying their purchases? Is it the -- you're saying their end markets aren't moving as quickly? Are they not seeing the benefits of AI, or are the price increases slowing them down that maybe there's not as good return on investment? Maybe just a little more detail around why are there so many delays. Dinakar Munagala: So let me start and then Stephen can jump in. The nature of some of these projects are tied to camera deployments. So they are about cameras being deployed in the field and then behind that pulling in boxes and then software from Blaize. So that's the delay. I'll let Stephen jump in on that as well. Stephen Patak: Sure. For several of our AI Service opportunities, we're working with data center and cloud service providers. And as we continue to build our portfolio on our own capacity, they've also got to drive their own demand in the markets in which they serve. So the faster they drive the demand for those type of services, and in this example being computer vision, we will continue to see more orders and more capacity that they will need from us. And that's just what some of the delay has been. It has nothing to do with demand, pricing, or anything else. It's just their own services ramping. And so therefore, the capacity that we sell them and they buy from us can ramp at the same levels. And that's where we've seen some of the delay. Dinakar Munagala: Right. And just to -- the underlying demand is definitely there, and that's where the whole backlog comes in that we've announced based on contracts. Kevin Cassidy: And then, opening up Europe, that's great news. And just wonder if you could compare the opportunities that you have in Europe? How do they compare to the U.S. or Southeast Asia that you've been winning? Are they faster time to market or are they -- I guess, or is it just more shots on goal having another territory opened? Stephen Patak: Yes. No, they're -- this is Stephen again. Look, they're very similar and in line with where our revenue engines are -- across all 3 of those pillars, which we spoke about. What I will say is, is we've got to be very focused on our go-to-market, and we've got to be very intentional on the opportunities that we pursue and when we pursue them. And naturally, you mentioned Asia Pacific, and that started showing itself a couple of quarters ago. And then naturally behind that, we had opportunities in Europe that also started showing themselves at customers that we're talking about now. We've been working with them for a couple of quarters to validate and qualify our solutions. And that's paid off, as we've seen, with our first purchase order. And as they continue to finish their qualification, now we're going to see really that moving at scale. So whether it's the U.S. business, Europe, Asia Pacific, they're all really being driven by those pillars we talked about from both the autonomous systems as well as the hybrid AI platform. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Gil Luria of D.A. Davidson. Gil Luria: Based on the -- you gave something on Starshine and NeoTensr. Based on the other business that you have and the backlog that you're looking at right now, can you give us an early sense for what the picture looks like in terms of revenue and revenue growth for 2027? Harminder Sehmi: Sure. The $50 million that we're talking about is essentially a commitment from NeoTensr, which you remember we announced earlier, contract of up to $50 million. So this $70 million is an amendment to that agreement. And we're expecting that $50 million to go into 2027. I'm expecting 2027 to be probably 2.5x to 3x where we are guiding this year to end at. Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Craig Ellis of B. Riley Securities. Craig Ellis: The first question is really a clarification inside of the updated calendar year '26 guide. So our midpoint is $41.5 million, and that would imply after the revenues in the first half of the year about $26.5 million in the second half. So we're talking about good half-on-half growth. The question is this, can you help us with the linearity of revenues from the third quarter to the fourth quarter? And it seems like about two-thirds of the second half revenues would be our new server program. Is that right? And what other programs would make up the balance of revenue? Harminder Sehmi: Hey Craig, so I would see, I'm expecting Q3 to be similar to Q2, and Q4 will be a little bit heavier than that. Any upside that some of the things that Stephen talked about will more likely come and hit us in Q4. But you're right that the $70 million or part of the $70 million is going to be the majority of what happens in Q3 and Q4. And again, going back to the discipline that we're applying to guidance is, those are contracts in hand. There are others that are -- would expect it to follow shortly or follow in time. Stephen Patak: Maybe I can answer -- I can answer the second part of your question as well. Look, we have an incredibly high confidence level on the way that we just guided, right? We have 90% of those orders in-house. The additional 10% is not single-threaded on any given deal. And so a very high level of confidence as it relates to how we get to the number that we just stated. Craig Ellis: Yes. And I think a lot of us will find that conservatism refreshing, Stephen. So thanks for that. And it seems like there's conservatism in the way you framed up your end backlog, just given program size. My follow-up question was really related to longer-term items, and I'll phrase it this way. As the team looked at how it was going to frame this year's expectations, I think the press release indicated there were a number of opportunities that were excluded from this year's new revenue guide, but it seemed like those opportunities were still advancing. And is that the case? And as we think about the 4 national-scale hybrid AI platforms, can you just help us understand could those be things that contributed to revenue next year? What would lead to that? And if next year would be the first year of revenue, what's the timeframe we're talking about across these 4 different opportunities? Stephen Patak: On those, to your point, those are not included in the guide. They are moving forward vigorously through the sales stage, through customer acceptance and qualification. Right now, I would peg at least -- let's call it, I don't want to ever call all 4 of those, but let's just say those subset of opportunities would look to be Q1 of next year. And our goal is to be able to bring that into this year and provide above and beyond the guidance. But right now, I would peg that for Q1 next year. Dinakar Munagala: Yes, and just to calibrate, I think the trends that we're witnessing are important, everything to do with aerial autonomous robotics and hybrid AI, and that's what is driving the demand. So we're feeling good about how our AI Services and hybrid AI is actually helping our customers, and that's driving all the demand. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Richard Shannon of Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Richard Shannon: I guess the first 1 is on you talking about an elongated sales cycle here. I guess 1 thing I want to confirm is that these opportunities are still in the pipeline and not lost. Can you clarify the degree to which that is the case? Stephen Patak: Absolutely. All these opportunities are still in the pipeline and are not lost. And honestly, our pipeline continues to grow. But the reality is for us right now is we are focused on the opportunities that are in front of us that we can execute and close as quickly as we can. And the ones that we're speaking about now are absolutely still in the pipeline, just simply have moved from a timing perspective. Richard Shannon: Okay. And to follow up on this general topic, you cited the memory costs, which are well known in this market here. I mean, do you need to see these come back down in order for these engagements to reaccelerate or reignite or whatever? Or do we just need to stay flat here? Or just what needs to happen here with memory costs in order to make good on this pipeline? Harminder Sehmi: Hey, Richard. So we're doing a couple of things. Number 1, we already started conversations with the memory suppliers to see what it would take to go do some forward buying, what kind of commitments they need, and that conversation is ongoing. And really, the second thing is that we've invested probably $8 million and $9 million already in forward buying certain components, chips, and some of the boxes and so on that are required. And most of those are going to turn into revenue over the next 6 to 9 months. So we're trying to manage the cost that way. The final point I'll make is that with -- we're reserving the right to change pricing as memory pricing changes, change the pricing to the customer. So that we maintain at least, when we're doing third-party software -- third-party hardware, I beg your pardon, at least we're maintaining a reasonable margin. Richard Shannon: Okay. That makes sense. And 1 last question for me, and I'll jump out of line here. You mentioned these 4 national programs. Obviously, I've identified the countries and wouldn't expect you to, but some countries are very small and some are large here. Could you give us some sense of how big these programs can be? Certainly in your press release and in your prepared remarks, you talked about some deals with thousands of servers. Is that the kind of scale we're talking about or could it be more? Just give us a sense of what these could be. Stephen Patak: Yes, I think that's fair. Look, because of our, I would say our focus in the last couple of quarters, several of these deals that we mentioned are in Southeast Asia, right? And so, really -- primarily we're seeing the acceleration of the sales process and the sales cycle because we have a very strong partner-led model there. And 1 we've mentioned in the past, 1 being Nokia, and that allowed to accelerate that as well. And these are very large opportunities across several countries in Southeast Asia. So I think that, that scope that you gave is reasonable. Operator: Thank you. This concludes the question-and-answer portion of today's call. At this time, I would like to turn the call back to Dinakar for closing remarks. Dinakar Munagala: Thank you all for joining us. Let me close with the 3 things we are driving from here. First, conversion. Turning what we are pursuing into committed orders so it lands as revenue this year and as backlog into 2027. Second, margin. It improves when full solution goes in. Our silicon, our software, with AI Services on top. We expect the first revenue from AI Services this year. Third, cost. We have reset our revenue outlook this quarter, and aligning our spending to match it. I said earlier that the economics of inference are now the deciding factor, and that this is the market our architecture was designed for. That has not changed and neither has our conviction in it. Every AI deployment being built right now will run inference for years after it goes live. Stephen showed you where the demand is coming from. Enterprises, governments, sovereign programs. We are built for it on all 3 fronts. The demand in front of us, the software we are adding, and the next-generation product that comes next. And on current expectations, we are entering 2027 carrying approximately $50 million of that committed business. Thank you for your time and your support. Operator: This will conclude today's conference call. Thank you, everyone, for joining. You may now disconnect your lines. Before you buy stock in Blaize, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Blaize wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut are built for long-term growth and could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $432,621!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,335,314!* That performance is why people listen. With a track record of beating the S&P 500 by nearly 5x, Stock Advisor offers a distinct advantage. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built for the long haul. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of August 20, 2026. This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Blaize (BZAI) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool

Our analysts just identified a stock with the potential to be the next Nvidia. Tell us how you invest and we'll show you why it's our #1 pick. Tap here. Management reduced 2026 revenue guidance to $40 million - $43 million, citing pilot programs that failed to convert to orders and delayed scaling by existing customers. Performance was impacted by a strategic decision to halt engagements with Starshine until outstanding balances are paid, resulting in a $7.1 million receivable provision. The market is shifting from frontier model training to inference efficiency, a transition management believes favors their architecture's ability to provide more output per dollar of infrastructure. Gross margin of 8% in Q2 reflects a temporary mix heavily weighted toward third-party hardware, which carries significantly lower margins than proprietary silicon and software. Supply chain headwinds, specifically material increases in DRAM and LPDDR pricing due to industry capacity shifts toward High-Bandwidth Memory, are pressuring margins and working capital. The company is seeing a convergence of 'Physical AI' in industrial/sovereign sectors and a new generation of hybrid AI data centers that prioritize vendor independence and application-layer software. Guidance methodology has been tightened to include only binding non-cancellable purchase orders and high-confidence contracts, resulting in a projected year-end backlog of approximately $50 million. Management expects 2027 revenue to grow 2.5x to 3x over 2026 levels, supported by $70 million in signed agreements at current memory prices. Development of the next-generation AI inference product will be paced as a 'staged investment' aligned with customer requirements and confidential computing needs for sovereign clients. The company is identifying opportunities to reduce operating expenses and optimize cash consumption to extend financial flexibility in light of lower near-term revenue expectations. Future margin expansion is dependent on the rollout of AI Services, which will be priced as software per rack, per megawatt, or per fleet to capture value from model orchestration. A $7.1 million provision was taken for the Starshine receivable, with management reevaluating the commercial relationship due to meaningful uncertainty regarding future progress. Regional uncertainty in the Middle East has pushed a significant smart city opportunity into an extended field trial, removing it from current year guidance. Advanced payment requirements from suppliers have increased, necessitating a more judicious approach to inventory management to avoid dilutive financing. A $2.8 million one-time non-cash charge was recorded in a related party settlement during the second quarter. One stock. Nvidia-level potential. 30M+ investors trust Moby to find it first. Get the pick. Tap here. Management clarified that delays are often tied to physical infrastructure rollouts, such as camera deployments, rather than a lack of demand or ROI concerns. Cloud service providers are taking longer to drive their own end-user demand for computer vision services, which dictates the pace of Blaize's capacity sales. Blaize has invested $8 million to $9 million in forward-buying components to lock in costs for revenue expected over the next 6 to 9 months. The company is reserving the right to adjust pricing for customers to pass through memory cost increases and protect margins on third-party hardware. Four national-scale programs in Southeast Asia are currently in the pipeline but excluded from 2026 guidance; management expects these to contribute starting in Q1 2027. These sovereign engagements involve large-scale deployments, including one data center build-out in the 150-megawatt range.

This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Release Date: August 13, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Blaize Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:BZAI) holds a signed agreement covering 2,000 servers worth approximately $70 million, providing a strong committed backlog into 2027. The company has successfully opened the European market with its first purchase order for several thousand units, expanding its geographic footprint. Revenue for the first half of 2026 totaled $14.7 million, a 390% year-over-year increase, demonstrating significant growth. The company is seeing strong demand across its business, with a broader and more diversified pipeline than ever before, including national-scale programs in Southeast Asia. Management expects 2027 revenue to be 2.5 to 3 times the revised 2026 guidance, supported by the $50 million backlog entering the year. Blaize Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:BZAI) significantly reduced its full-year 2026 revenue guidance from $130 million to a range of $40 million to $43 million. Several commercial opportunities, including some with successfully completed pilots, did not convert into orders as expected, leading to delays. The company fully reserved a $7.1 million receivable from customer Starshine and has paused engagement until the outstanding balance is paid, creating uncertainty. Supply chain cost inflation, particularly for DRAM and LPDDR memory, has materially increased costs and is expected to persist, pressuring margins. Gross margin fell sharply to 8% in Q2 from 58% in Q1 due to a revenue mix weighted heavily toward lower-margin third-party hardware. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 6 Warning Signs with BZAI. Is BZAI fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Q: Can you give us an early sense of what the revenue and revenue growth picture looks like for 2027 based on the current backlog?A: Harminder Semi (CFO) stated that the projected $50 million backlog at the end of 2026 is essentially a commitment from Neotensor, which is an amendment to their earlier contract of up to $50 million. He expects 2027 revenue to be approximately 2.5 to 3 times the revised 2026 guidance of $40 million to $43 million. Q: Can you help us understand the linearity of revenues from Q3 to Q4, and is it correct that about two-thirds of second-half revenues will come from the new server program?A: Harminder Semi (CFO) expects Q3 revenue to be similar to Q2, with Q4 being heavier. He confirmed that the $70 million server agreement will be the majority of Q3 and Q4 revenue. Stephen Patek (CRO) added that they have an incredibly high confidence level in the guidance, with 90% of the orders already in-house and the remaining 10% not dependent on any single deal. Q: Could you help us understand better why customers are delaying their purchases? Is it because their end markets aren't moving quickly, or are price increases slowing them down?A: Diniker Munagala (CEO) explained that some projects are tied to camera deployments in the field, which then pull in boxes and software from Blaize, causing delays. Stephen Patek (CRO) added that for AI service opportunities with data center and cloud providers, the delay is due to their own services ramping up, not a lack of demand or pricing issues. The capacity they buy from Blaize can only ramp as fast as their own end-user demand grows. Q: As the team looked at framing this year's expectations, there were opportunities excluded from the new revenue guide. Could those four national scale hybrid AI platforms contribute to revenue next year, and what is the timeframe?A: Stephen Patek (CRO) confirmed these opportunities are not included in the current guidance but are moving forward vigorously through sales, customer acceptance, and qualification. He estimates a subset of these opportunities could close in Q1 of next year, with a goal to potentially bring some into this year as upside above guidance. Q: Can you clarify that the elongated sales cycle opportunities are still in the pipeline and not lost?A: Stephen Patek (CRO) confirmed that all these opportunities are still in the pipeline and not lost. The pipeline continues to grow, but the company is focused on opportunities it can execute and close quickly. The deals mentioned have simply moved from a timing perspective, not been lost. Q: Do you need memory costs to come back down for engagements to reaccelerate, or what needs to happen with memory costs to make good on the pipeline?A: Harminder Semi (CFO) stated they have started conversations with memory suppliers about forward buying and have already invested $8 million to $9 million in forward buying certain components and chips. Most of these will turn into revenue over the next six to nine months. They are also reserving the right to adjust customer pricing as memory pricing changes to maintain reasonable margins on third-party hardware. Q: You mentioned four national programs. Can you give us a sense of how big these programs can be, and is the scale of thousands of servers reasonable?A: Stephen Patek (CRO) indicated that several of these deals are in Southeast Asia, where they have a strong partner-led model, including with Nokia, which has accelerated the sales cycle. He confirmed that the scoping of thousands of servers is reasonable, as these are very large opportunities across several countries in Southeast Asia. Q: Can you compare the opportunities in Europe to those in the U.S. or Southeast Asia? Are they faster to market or just more shots on goal?A: Stephen Patek (CRO) explained that the European opportunities are very similar and in line with the company's revenue engines across all three pillars. They have been working with European customers for a couple of quarters to validate and qualify solutions, which has paid off with the first purchase order. As they finish qualification, the company expects to see the business move at scale, driven by both autonomous systems and the hybrid AI platform. Q: What is driving the significant reduction in full-year 2026 revenue guidance from $130 million to $40-$43 million?A: Harminder Semi (CFO) outlined three primary factors: First, several commercial opportunities did not materialize as expected, including a decision not to engage further with Starshine until it pays its outstanding balance, which has been fully reserved. Second, customers are deferring follow-on orders as they scale their AI deployments more slowly than forecast, with longer qualification times and extended field trials. Third, memory economics have gotten harder due to increased DRAM and LPDDR pricing and higher requirements for advanced payments from suppliers. Q: How are you managing the balance sheet and working capital through this transition, given the lower revenue outlook?A: Harminder Semi (CFO) stated that the revised growth outlook reduces near-term working capital requirements, as the prior guidance would have necessitated significant upfront commitments to purchase memory-intensive inventory at elevated prices. The company is identifying further opportunities to reduce operating expenses, exploring non-dilutive debt financing by leveraging customer contracts, and seeking advance payments from customers to mitigate working capital demands. No financing decision has been made at this time. For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.

EL DORADO HILLS, Calif., Aug. 13, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Blaize Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: BZAI, NASDAQ: BZAIW) (“Blaize,” the “Company,” “we,” “us,” and “our”) , a leader in programmable, energy-efficient edge AI computing, today reported financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2026. Second-quarter revenue was $12.0 million, compared with $2.7 million in the first quarter of 2026. Blaize also updated its full-year 2026 revenue outlook to a range of $40.0 million to $43.0 million, reflecting engagements that did not convert into orders, and supply chain cost inflation driven by materially higher memory pricing. Commercial activity continues across Blaize’s two primary revenue engines: physical AI, spanning autonomous systems, robotics and ruggedized equipment, and the Company’s Hybrid AI Platform. Recent progress includes a first purchase order from Europe for several thousand units and increased activity across the Asia-Pacific region. Blaize closed a binding agreement covering 2,000 servers, representing approximately $70.0 million at current memory pricing. The Company expects approximately $20.0 million of the agreement to be recognized as revenue in the second half of 2026, with the remaining approximately $50.0 million representing contracted backlog expected to be fulfilled in 2027. The total value of the agreement will vary with memory pricing. Management Commentary “While we delivered solid sequential revenue growth in the second quarter, we have reduced our full-year revenue outlook,” said Dinakar Munagala, co-founder and CEO of Blaize. “What changed is the pace at which opportunity converts into orders, alongside materially higher memory pricing.” “At the same time, we are seeing broader commercial engagement across our target markets and customer base. We opened Europe this year and activity across Asia-Pacific has increased. We believe that diversification, together with more disciplined forecasting and execution, can provide a stronger foundation for more predictable growth over time.” Harminder Sehmi, CFO of Blaize, added, “Our revised full-year revenue outlook is weighted toward revenue from our largest customer and is based on binding, non-cancellable purchase orders that we believe we can fulfill with inventory commitments already made or planned. We have excluded opportunities that are still advancing, regardless of how far along they may be. This provides a more disciplined basis for our outlook for the remainder of 2026.” “We are also reviewing our cost structure against our revenue priorities, with an emphasis on operating discipline, optimizing cash consumption and preserving the core capabilities required to execute our strategy.”Business and Operational Highlights Received a first purchase order from Europe for several thousand Blaize-branded units. Actively pursuing four national-scale Hybrid AI Platform programs at different stages of development, including applications for facility supervision, production quality grading and fuel-retail monitoring. Advancing development of Blaize AI Services in response to requirements from active customer programs, with additional capabilities planned across document processing, quality grading, compliance scoring, video analytics, small language model assistants and industry-specific services. Advanced customer qualifications in aerial robotics and ruggedized platforms, supporting potential higher-volume deployments. Second Quarter 2026 Financials Revenue was $12.0 million, compared with $2.0 million in the second quarter of 2025. Gross margin was 8%, compared with 58% in the first quarter of 2026 and 59% in the second quarter of 2025. The sequential decline primarily reflects a revenue mix weighted toward lower-margin third-party server hardware. Net loss was $28.8 million, compared with a net loss of $22.7 million in the first quarter of 2026 and $29.6 million in the second quarter of 2025. Adjusted EBITDA loss, a non-GAAP financial measure, was $20.9 million, compared with an Adjusted EBITDA loss of $13.9 million in the first quarter of 2026 and $12.9 million in the second quarter of 2025. Cash and cash equivalents were $36.8 million as of June 30, 2026, compared with $33.2 million as of March 31, 2026. First Six Months of 2026 Financials Revenue was $14.7 million, compared with $3.0 million in the first six months of 2025. Gross margin was 17%, compared with 62% in the first six months of 2025. Net loss was $51.5 million, compared with a net loss of $177.4 million in the first six months of 2025. Adjusted EBITDA loss was $34.8 million, compared with an Adjusted EBITDA loss of $28.3 million in the first six months of 2025. 2026 Financial Outlook The following forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, and actual results may differ materially, as described below in “Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements.” Full-year revenue in the range of $40.0 million to $43.0 million Full-year Adjusted EBITDA loss in the range of $62.0 million to $65.0 million Stock-based compensation of approximately $34.7 million Weighted average shares outstanding of approximately 141 million shares This updated revenue outlook reflects what we currently expect to recognize as revenue in 2026, not the full value of business that we expect to book by year-end. Conference Call Blaize management will host a conference call today, August 13, 2026, at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time to discuss the Company’s financial results and outlook. A live webcast will be accessible here and on Blaize’s investor relations website at ir.blaize.com, and an archived conference call webcast will be available on Blaize’s investor relations website for one year following the live call. About Blaize Blaize delivers a programmable AI platform, purpose-built for AI inference workloads in real-world environments. Its Hybrid AI architecture combines the Blaize GSP (Graph Streaming Processor) with GPU-based infrastructure, enabling AI inference workloads to run across edge, cloud, and data center. Blaize solutions support computer vision, multimodal AI, and sensor-driven applications across smart cities, industrial automation, telecommunications, retail, logistics, and mission-critical operations. Blaize is headquartered in El Dorado Hills, California, with presence across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Visit www.blaize.com or follow us on LinkedIn @blaizeinc. Non-GAAP Measures In addition to financial measures presented in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the U.S. (“GAAP”), we report certain key financial measures that are not required by, or presented in accordance with, GAAP. Non-GAAP financial information is presented for supplemental informational purposes only, should not be considered in isolation of, or as a substitute for or superior to, financial information presented in accordance with GAAP, and may be different from similarly titled non-GAAP measures used by other companies. Accordingly, you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this information. We believe that along with our GAAP financial information, our non-GAAP financial information when taken collectively and evaluated appropriately, is helpful to investors in assessing our operating performance. In conjunction with net loss calculated in accordance with GAAP, we also use EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA, as defined below, to evaluate our ongoing operations and for internal planning and forecasting purposes. EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA EBITDA is defined as “Earnings before interest, income taxes, depreciation, and amortization”. Adjusted EBITDA is defined as EBITDA further adjusted for non-cash items such as stock-based compensation, changes in fair value, and operational income and expenses that are not expected to be ongoing, as discussed below in the footnote to “other adjustments”. In reliance on the exception provided by Item 10(e)(1)(i)(B) of Regulation S-K, we have not reconciled the forward-looking Adjusted EBITDA (Non-GAAP) for the full fiscal year 2026 included above because we are unable to quantify certain amounts that would be required to be included in net income (loss), the most directly comparable GAAP measure, without unreasonable efforts due to the high variability and difficulty in predicting, with reasonable certainty, certain items excluded from Adjusted EBITDA. Consequently, we believe such reconciliation would imply a degree of precision that would be misleading to investors. Preparation of such reconciliations would require a forward-looking balance sheet, statement of income and statement of cash flow, prepared in accordance with GAAP, and such forward-looking financial statements are unavailable to Blaize without unreasonable effort. For the same reasons, Blaize is unable to address the probable significance of the unavailable information. We expect the variability of these excluded items may have an unpredictable, and potentially significant, impact on our future GAAP financial results. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), and Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), including statements regarding our 2026 financial outlook; financial projections; stock-based compensation; weighted average shares outstanding; release of the AI Services platform; expectations for growth; the expectations for AI infrastructure ecosystem development and AI services deployment; expected cost reductions and operating expense optimization; the industry in which Blaize operates; market and customer opportunities; and product offerings. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the following words: “may,” “will,” “could,” “would,” “should,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “project,” “potential,” “continue,” “ongoing,” “target,” “seek” or the negative or plural of these words, or other similar expressions that are predictions or indicate future events or prospects, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words. Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections and other statements about future events that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual future events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this press release, including but not limited to: changes in domestic and foreign business, market, financial, political and legal conditions; risks related to the Business Combination, as defined in the Glossary of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025 filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) on March 24, 2026, and amended by Amendment No. 1 on Form 10-K/A filed with the SEC on April 30, 2026 (the “Annual Report on Form 10-K” or “Form 10-K”), including that the expected benefits of the Business Combination are not obtained, whether due to competition, the ability of the combined company to grow and manage growth profitably, maintain relationships with customers and suppliers and retain its management and key employees, among other things, and that the Business Combination disrupts current plans and operations of the Company; the ability to meet with the applicable stock exchange listing standards from time to time; the ability of the Company to successfully market its products and services; the ability of the Company to successfully deploy its technologies across customer settings; changes in applicable law or regulations; changes in global and U.S. economic conditions, including impacts from geopolitical conflicts, recession, inflation, changes in trade policies (including tariffs and other trade measures) of the United States and other countries, interest rate fluctuations, and financial market conditions; prolonged or recurring U.S. federal government shutdowns; the outcome of any legal proceedings that have been or may be instituted against the Company or may involve the Company; the effects of competition on Blaize’s future business; the ability of the combined company to issue equity or equity-linked securities or obtain debt financing on favorable terms or at all; the enforceability of our intellectual property rights, including our copyrights, patents, trademarks and trade secrets, and the potential infringement on the intellectual property rights of others; risks related to human capital; risks related to cybersecurity and data privacy; the outcome of any government and regulatory proceedings, investigations and inquiries that have been or may be instituted against the Company or may involve the Company; and those factors discussed under the heading “Risk Factors” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K, and other documents filed by Blaize from time to time with the SEC. These filings identify and address other important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and Blaize assumes no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law, including the securities laws of the United States and the rules and regulations of the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Blaize does not give any assurance that it will achieve its expectations. While financial projections are necessarily speculative, Blaize believes that the preparation of prospective financial information involves increasingly higher levels of uncertainty the further out the projection extends from the date of preparation. The inclusion of financial information or projections in this press release should not be regarded as an indication that Blaize, or its representatives and advisors, considered or consider the information or projections to be a reliable prediction of future events. The independent registered public accounting firm of Blaize has not audited, reviewed, compiled or performed any procedures with respect to the projections for the purpose of their inclusion in this press release and, accordingly, has not expressed an opinion or provided any other form of assurance with respect thereto for the purpose of this press release. Contacts:Blaize [email protected] [email protected]

Interested in Blaize Holdings, Inc.? Here are five stocks we like better. Blaize cut its 2026 revenue forecast to $40 million–$43 million, down from $130 million, because of delayed customer deployments, missed order conversions, higher memory costs and uncertainty around a Starshine receivable. Management said it has roughly $70 million in contracted server business, with some revenue expected to shift into 2027. Second-quarter revenue rose to $12 million from $2.7 million in the first quarter, but the company’s gross margin fell sharply to about 8% from 58% as sales were dominated by lower-margin third-party server hardware. Blaize reported a $20.9 million adjusted EBITDA loss and ended the quarter with $36.8 million in cash. The company is suspending further Starshine business until its overdue balance is paid, while continuing planned deliveries with NeoTensor and projecting about $50 million in year-end 2026 backlog. Blaize is also pursuing cost cuts, potential contract-backed financing and higher-margin AI Services revenue to improve its financial position. Blaize (NASDAQ:BZAI) lowered its full-year 2026 revenue outlook to $40 million to $43 million, from prior guidance of $130 million, citing delayed customer deployments, commercial opportunities that did not convert as expected, higher memory costs and a provision tied to an outstanding Starshine receivable. Chief Executive Officer Dinakar Munagala said the revised forecast does not reflect all of the company’s contracted business. Blaize has a signed agreement covering 2,000 servers valued at about $70 million at current memory prices, he said. A portion is expected to become 2026 revenue, while the remainder is committed business expected to carry into 2027. → AST SpaceMobile Earnings Just Reminded Investors How Risky Space Can Be “Several engagements have not converted into orders, including some where pilots were completed successfully,” Munagala said. Other opportunities remain in progress but are closing later than Blaize had anticipated, he added. For the second quarter ended June 30, Blaize reported revenue of $12 million, up from $2.7 million in the first quarter. First-half revenue totaled $14.7 million, compared with $3 million in the year-earlier period. → Nebius’ Q2 Beat Shows the AI Bottleneck Is Capacity, Not Demand Chief Financial Officer Harminder Sehmi said the quarter’s revenue was driven largely by third-party server hardware, which generated lower margins for the company. Gross profit was $0.9 million, producing an approximately 8% gross margin, compared with 58% in the first quarter. The first-quarter margin had benefited from a higher mix of Blaize software and hardware, while the second quarter consisted almost entirely of third-party server hardware, Sehmi said. → On Holding's Price Stumble May Be an Opening for a Company Built to Run Second-quarter operating expenses were $31.5 million, compared with $23.9 million in the prior quarter. The increase included a $7.1 million provision for the remaining Starshine receivable, about $1 million of additional investment in the company’s next-generation chip program and a $2.8 million one-time non-cash charge related to a related-party settlement. Blaize reported an adjusted EBITDA loss of $20.9 million, compared with a $13.9 million loss in the first quarter. The company ended the quarter with $36.8 million in cash, up $3.6 million sequentially, after receiving $9.4 million in customer payments and $32.8 million in net proceeds from an equity offering. Sehmi said Blaize has decided not to pursue further business with Starshine until the customer pays its outstanding balance. The company fully reserved the receivable during the quarter, has engaged local partners to pursue collection and is re-evaluating the commercial relationship. “There is meaningful uncertainty as to whether it will progress further,” Sehmi said of Starshine. Meanwhile, Blaize said NeoTensor paid in full the amount due from a fourth-quarter 2025 sale. The receivable from a second-quarter 2026 sale remains within contractual payment terms, and the companies are planning third- and fourth-quarter hybrid-server deliveries. Sehmi said Blaize expects about $50 million in backlog at the end of 2026, based on binding, non-cancelable purchase orders that can be fulfilled with inventory commitments made or planned. He said the backlog is weighted heavily toward the company’s largest account. During the question-and-answer session, Sehmi described the expected $50 million of backlog as a commitment from NeoTensor associated with an amendment to a previously announced agreement. He said Blaize expects 2027 revenue to be roughly 2.5 to three times the level anticipated for 2026, though the company did not provide formal 2027 guidance. Management said customers are delaying some follow-on orders as they scale their own AI deployments. Cloud and data-center customers have taken longer to qualify new technology, certain government programs have longer procurement cycles than expected, and a Middle East smart-city opportunity has moved into an extended field trial. Chief Revenue Officer Stephen Patak said the delayed opportunities remain in the company’s pipeline and have not been lost. He attributed some timing issues to customers’ own pace of ramping AI services, including computer-vision offerings, which affects the capacity they need from Blaize. Blaize also cited higher DRAM and LPDDR prices as capacity shifts toward high-bandwidth memory, along with suppliers seeking increased advance payments. Munagala said the company has begun discussions with memory suppliers regarding forward-buying arrangements and has invested roughly $8 million to $9 million in components, chips and equipment expected to convert into revenue over the next six to nine months. The company also intends to retain the ability to adjust customer pricing as memory costs change, particularly on sales involving third-party hardware. Blaize expects gross margin of 17% to 19% in the second half of 2026 and an adjusted EBITDA loss of $62 million to $65 million for the full year. Sehmi said the company is reviewing its cost structure and identifying further operating-expense reductions as it seeks to preserve cash and extend financial flexibility. The company is exploring non-dilutive debt financing that could be supported by customer contracts and is seeking advance customer payments to reduce working-capital requirements. No financing decision has been made, Sehmi said. Management said it is pursuing growth through two primary revenue engines: silicon and software integrated into aerial robotics, autonomous systems and ruggedized equipment, and its hybrid AI platform for cloud, data-center, enterprise and government applications. Blaize said it received its first European purchase order and has shipped thousands of units there. It also cited growing activity in Asia-Pacific and an emerging U.S. pipeline. Patak said several national-scale hybrid AI platform opportunities are progressing through qualification and customer acceptance but are not included in current guidance. He said a subset could potentially begin contributing revenue in the first quarter of 2027. Munagala said Blaize expects its AI Services software suite to become a larger source of margin over time. The company expects its first AI Services revenue this year and is developing capabilities including document processing, quality grading, compliance scoring, video analytics, small-language-model assistance, model optimization and workload orchestration. Blaize (NASDAQ: BZAI) is a fabless semiconductor company that designs and develops hardware and software solutions for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning applications at the edge. The company’s core technology is centered on its proprietary Graph Streaming Processor (GSP) architecture, which combines dataflow computing with a highly parallel matrix processing engine to deliver real-time AI inference with low power consumption. Blaize’s platform is aimed at customers seeking to deploy sophisticated AI workloads in environments where power efficiency, latency and form factor are critical. The company offers a hardware portfolio that includes standalone GSP modules, PCIe cards and M.2 form-factor boards, alongside its Blaize AI software stack. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. The article "Blaize Q2 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat. View MarketBeat's top stocks for August 2026.

Image source: The Motley Fool. Tuesday, March 24, 2026 at 5 p.m. ET Chief Executive Officer — Dinakar Munagala Chief Financial Officer — Harminder Sehmi Chief Revenue Officer — Stephen Patak Need a quote from a Motley Fool analyst? Email [email protected] Unknown Executive: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining Blaize Holdings, Inc.'s Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. Before we begin the prepared remarks, we would like to remind you that earlier today, Blaize Holdings, Inc. issued a press release announcing its fourth quarter and full year 2025 results. Earnings materials are available on the Investor Relations section of Blaize Holdings, Inc.'s website. Today's earnings call and press release reflects management's view as of today only and include statements related to our 2026 financial guidance, revenue, gross margin, competitive position, anticipated industry trends, market opportunities, products and financing opportunities, all of which constitute forward-looking statements under the federal securities laws. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in or implied by these forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties associated with our business. For a discussion of material risks and other important factors that could impact our actual results, please refer to the company's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, including the Risk Factors section therein and today's press release, both of which can be found on our Investor Relations website. Any forward-looking statements that we make on the call are based on assumptions as of today, and other than as may be required by law, we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. Information discussed on this call concerning Blaize Holdings, Inc.'s industry, competitive position and the markets in which it operates is based on information from independent industry and research organizations, other third-party sources and management's estimates. These estimates are derived from publicly available information released by independent industry analysts and other third-party sources as well as data from Blaize Holdings, Inc.'s internal research. These estimates are based on reasonable assumptions and computations made upon reviewing such data and Blaize Holdings, Inc.'s experience and knowledge of such industry and markets. By definition, assumptions are subject to uncertainty and risk, which could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the estimates. During this call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures should be considered as a supplement to and not a substitute for measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. For a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures discussed during this call to the most directly comparable GAAP measure, please refer to today's press release. Now I'd like to introduce Dinakar Munagala, the CEO of Blaize Holdings, Inc. Dinakar Munagala: Good afternoon. Over the course of 2025, we grew our revenue from approximately $1 million in the first quarter to $23.8 million in the fourth quarter. We exceeded the upper end of our revenue guidance, representing approximately 20x growth over the year. This reflects strong momentum across inference infrastructure, sovereign AI and public safety applications. Customers today evaluate AI infrastructure on 3 things: cost per inference, power efficiency and revenue per rack. At the same time, many enterprise inference workloads do not require the largest models. We are seeing increasing adoption towards smaller task-specific models that deliver strong results with far greater efficiency and faster time into real business outcomes. That is where Blaize is focused. Over the past several months, we strengthened our execution. We brought on a Chief Revenue Officer, Stephen Patak, to scale our commercial efforts globally. In January, we signed an MOU with Nokia's Asia Pacific division, and we are now advancing that collaboration through an innovation hub in Singapore to build and validate our combined AI platform. We will launch this at GITEX Asia in Singapore, where we'll present to enterprises, governments, cloud providers and data center operators across Asia Pacific. We are already seeing early traction taking shape across the region, spanning cloud infrastructure, sovereign AI and real-world applications. Many of these opportunities follow multiphase models, where our systems expand as workloads grow. One of the most concrete examples is in India, where we signed an MOU with the Government of Telangana supporting its AI cloud innovation hub. This foundational platform spans mining safety, smart cities and agriculture, where we jointly enable real-time intelligence of worker safety, equipment operations and environmental conditions. In China, we are also expanding our footprint with regional solution providers focused on AI data center build-out, driving assisted living and smart community solutions in patient safety and remote monitoring with enterprise engagements underway. In Korea, we are working with solution partners like GSIL specializing in factory safety and industrial monitoring. Across Southeast Asia and Australia, we are working with Nokia and vertical systems integrators to explore AI use cases in urban safety, retail analytics, maritime infrastructure and airport security. In the U.S., Europe and Latin America, we're expanding engagements across enterprise and data center environments focused on AI infrastructure, public safety, industrial robotics and autonomous operations. And for the third consecutive year, we will showcase our solutions at ISC West, the largest converged security trade show. The Middle East and North Africa continues to be a strong growth market. Governments and enterprises are investing in security, visibility and sovereign infrastructure. In Saudi Arabia, we support energy and urban city use cases. In the UAE, we support civil defense, aerial monitoring and drone detection. In North Africa, we support large-scale industrial ecosystems. Blaize enables real-time detection and monitoring, supporting infrastructure security across energy, industrial and transportation environments. Our capabilities extend into robotics and autonomous systems. These systems require low latency and efficient inference where hybrid architectures become essential. This shifts AI from centralized data centers to distributed infrastructure. AI infrastructure is no longer limited to hyperscalers. It is now distributed across regional cloud providers, data center operators and sovereign programs. AI environments today remain highly fragmented. Thousands of vendors deliver narrow AI capabilities focused on vision, documents, identity or automation. Organizations are left integrating multiple systems before they can deliver real outcomes. The opportunity is to move from fragmented tools to integrated services. These capabilities are consolidating into platforms, and that transition is happening now. What ties all of this together is the underlying economics. At scale, this is about cost, efficiency and utilization. In our analysis, GPU-only infrastructure can scale revenue but remains constrained by high and recurring compute cost. By contrast, the Blaize model is designed to be cash flow efficient from the start, driven by lower silicon cost and power efficiency. A hybrid configuration combining GPUs and Blaize inference acceleration can deliver roughly a 50% lower infrastructure cost with approximately 60% lower power consumption or more than 2x improvement in efficiency. To support this model, we are progressing towards the initial release of the Blaize AI services platform in the second quarter. This is not just about cost. It brings fragmented AI capabilities into a unified services layer and enables customers to move faster from infrastructure to real-world outcomes. The platform combines inference silicon, intelligent software, API-based AI services. For AI providers, instead of relying on GPU rental, Blaize enables operators to monetize AI outcomes. Revenue comes from inference transactions, AI events and application services. As services scale, revenue grows faster than cost, driving operating leverage and margin expansion. In our analysis, traditional infrastructure models remain cost constrained over time. The Blaize AI services model enables more efficient scaling of revenue with improving economics as services grow. This is the difference between scaling compute and scaling a business. AI infrastructure investment continues to expand globally. This phase of the industry is no longer defined by larger models. It is defined by monetizing inference at scale. Platforms that combine efficient architecture with AI services are defining how AI operates today. Blaize is built for that model. Our focus remains on expanding commercial activities, scaling AI services and converting pipeline into revenue. Thank you. I will now hand this off to our CFO, Harminder Sehmi. Harminder Sehmi: Thank you, Dinakar, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to share our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results today. I'd like to begin with a few highlights. This is the fourth consecutive quarter where we exceeded our revenue guidance range since we became a public company in January 2025. Revenue of $38.6 million for the full year 2025 outperformed the upper end of our guidance by $600,000. Revenue for the fourth quarter doubled to $23.8 million from the prior quarter. And adjusted EBITDA loss was $50.5 million, an improvement of $4.5 million from the lower end of our guidance range for the year. This includes a $1 million benefit from higher gross margin and $3.5 million in lower OpEx and deferred technology costs. Focusing on revenue and gross margin. In the fourth quarter, we delivered revenue of $23.8 million, exceeding the upper end of our guidance by $700,000. This performance was driven by customer deployments of servers in the Asia Pacific region, supporting AI solutions into the smart health space. We are seeing continued demand as customers expand into AI data center infrastructure build-outs, which we expect to contribute to future revenue growth. Turning to the full year. 2025 marked an important milestone as our first full year of operations as a public company. We're pleased with the progress we achieved. Revenue of $38.6 million was up significantly from $1.6 million in the prior year. This reflects our success in laying the foundations to meet the rising demand for AI solutions across high-growth markets. Our growing partnerships with systems integrators and software providers is key to accelerating and streamlining the adoption of AI solutions powered by Blaize hardware and software. Let me now address the gross margin trends. Gross margin for the fourth quarter was 11%, and it was 16% for the full year. In prior updates, I have indicated that this approach has been important to our strategic plans as we've been able to more rapidly see substantial commercial relationships. I expect the quarterly trend to continue for the first half of 2026 as we adapt to the global memory constraints. Blaize hardware and software is expected to form a higher mix in our AI solutions from the second half of 2026. This should result in gross margins of between 30% and 35% in the fourth quarter. Turning to our fourth quarter and full year net loss and operating expenses. The GAAP net loss for the full year was $206.9 million compared to a GAAP net loss of $61.2 million in 2024. I'd like to spend a few moments breaking these numbers down to provide clarity on the underlying results. Key line items in our 2025 financials were a noncash $226 million charge arising from the change in fair value of legacy Blaize convertible notes and warrants, noncash $37.5 million in share-based compensation charge and transaction expenses of $12 million related to going public. These were offset by a $123.2 million credit, inclusive of both cash and noncash components, primarily driven by the change in value of warrants and earn-out shares, among other items. The adjusted EBITDA loss for fiscal 2025 was thus $50.5 million, up from a loss of $42.7 million in the prior year. The key reasons for the year-on-year increase were $3.2 million in building our teams, investment in our technology road map of $2.4 million, an increase of $1.5 million in marketing and $5 million in new expenses related to our preparations to operate as a public company, some of which are not expected to recur in 2026. I will now review operating expenses on a sequential basis, fourth versus third quarter 2025. In the fourth quarter of 2025, total operating expenses of $14.5 million, excluding $9.5 million in stock-based compensation, were largely flat versus the $14.9 million in the third quarter, excluding the stock-based compensation also of $9.5 million. Research and development expenses and sales, general and administrative costs were similarly flat quarter-on-quarter. We will invest prudently in people in line with growing revenue opportunities in 2026. Our engineers continue to develop the next-generation products, and we expect related external costs to kick in, in the second half. Our adjusted EBITDA loss in the fourth quarter of 2025 was $11.1 million, unchanged from the third quarter. We ended fiscal 2025 with $46 million in cash and cash equivalents. The available funds under our committed equity facility are $15.6 million. Now I'd like to spend a few moments talking about our recently announced shelf before moving ahead to guidance for 2026. As is common with companies that become eligible and meet the criteria to file a shelf S-3 registration statement, we took the opportunity to do so on the first year anniversary of our merger. This shelf allows us to raise up to $250 million through a broad range of securities in the next 3 years and on an as-needed basis. Our shelf offers broad flexibility to raise capital quickly when market conditions are favorable. We believe the shelf is helpful for strategic positioning. It will provide working capital needs, fund field trials and enable continued investment in new product development. Moving to our guidance for the current year. We operate in a dynamic environment that now includes global memory supply constraints and geopolitical tensions. We continue to monitor the supply chain closely and will invest prudently in research and development and go-to-market capability. We see demand across both edge and data center deployments. This creates an opportunity for recurring revenue as we expand our AI services platform. We're continuing our current partnerships as well as adding new customers. We believe new partnerships with recognized names like Nokia should lead to additional strategic opportunities in areas where we have not yet developed traction. With that, our 2026 fiscal guidance is as follows: revenue of $130 million remains unchanged. I expect the first half to be lighter than the second. Flat gross margins for the first half of 2026 expected to average between 30% and 35% by the fourth quarter; adjusted EBITDA loss of between $45 million and $50 million. In closing, we delivered strong revenue growth in the second half of 2025 and continue to build momentum across our customer base. We remain focused on disciplined cost management and operational execution. Our outlook for 2026 remains consistent with what we have previously shared. With that, I'll turn it back over to the operator for questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Gil Luria with D.A. Davidson. Gil Luria: You talked in your press release, and we've talked a lot about the different types of applications that are in front of you. I think in the release, you referred to public safety, retail, smart cities, aerial robotics. And I know there's auto coming down the pipe. How would you prioritize them in terms of what you're going to have this year and how those opportunities play out over the next 3 or 4 years? Dinakar Munagala: So I think the commonality is AI inference. This is where we're seeing momentum and comprising our full stack, the silicon, the system servers and our software on top. Specific use cases that -- where we've seen momentum are around a combination of smart health, factory automation, industrial use cases, and we're also part of relationships with drones and such use cases. I don't know if you want to add any further, Harminder. Harminder Sehmi: No, you've -- so Gil, the pipeline that we've got includes all of those. How we set priorities is really the pace at which the -- any POCs or pilots are getting concluded with those customers. As you know, inference requires or inference solutions requires access to data. So in short, the near-term priority is just converting a pipeline where we've got access to those customers and data. And in the medium term, it is how do we expand more business into some of those customers. Gil Luria: And then the second question is about gross margins. I appreciate the visibility into the end of this year. But longer term and at scale, what do we expect our long-term model to look for in terms of gross margins on the hardware side and on the software side and with more of a push to services, do we still expect software and services to be about 1/4 of the mix in a longer-term model? That will help us get the full picture. Harminder Sehmi: So yes, in the longer term for us is 55% plus, and that's going to be a blend of hardware and software. I think what we are observing now with the remarks that Dinakar went through on AI services platform, which essentially becomes a combination of hardware and software. So it's not -- you're not distinguishing between the 2. And there is a revenue share type model that we can see coming our way. So 55% plus as a blend. I think software and recurring revenue, if I can put it that way, could become a larger portion of the mix, but too early to say just yet, and we'll continue to make announcements as and when some of those deployments get public. Operator: Our next question comes from Craig Ellis with B. Riley Securities. Craig Ellis: Congratulations on hitting the strong revenue on-ramp in the fourth quarter. I wanted to start the line of inquiry following up on the $130 million revenue guide for calendar '26. Can you help us understand the extent to which Starshine and Yotta are driving that versus other things like maybe converting the Nokia MOU into revenue or maybe even getting traction on some of the new capabilities that we identified in the press release and you've talked about the services platform and AI application delivery. Harminder Sehmi: So let me start and then Dinakar can come in. So yes, Yotta and Starshine are partnerships that we developed late last year. They still remain important to us. The pace at which we deliver products to them is largely driven by their end user needs. There are other partners that we have introduced in the back end of last year. Over the next maybe 3 to 6 months, we expect to add maybe 1 or 2 more partners. So when I stand back and look at it, the revenue guidance is really supported by some of the engagements we've had and what we expect to close during the year. An important point to make is that the AI services platform and the relationship with partners like Nokia are expected to start to feature into -- towards the end of next year. And really, when we look at the business going forward, it falls into 3 sort of big buckets. Number one is just system revenue, which is a combination of mainly hardware, but it could be Blaize and third party. And number two is there's an attach rate of Blaize software, which gets monetized. And overall, when you look at the system, when you -- particularly when you're applying it to cloud service providers, Tier 2 cloud service providers, it's giving everybody or them an opportunity to start to monetize the infrastructure that they've invested in. Dinakar Munagala: Yes. And just to add, I guess, is that where we were with a couple of key relationships, I think that is actually growing in 2 dimensions. One is within anchor customers, there is a land and expand. It typically starts with one use case. And once we establish credibility, that leads to additional use cases and additional opportunity there. But also once we've developed a certain use case, it is relevant to a larger market. So we are witnessing that momentum as well, where a solution that we develop with a certain partner is required in a different geography, different customer and so on. So we're witnessing that kind of demand as well. The common theme is, of course, our combination of the 3 components that Harminder mentioned, hardware, software and API revenue that we expect will kick in with the launch of our AI services platform. Craig Ellis: Got it. That's very helpful. And then the follow-up is really a 2-parter. In past calls and conversations, we've quantified the opportunity pipeline at about $725 million, $725 million, can you give us an update on whether that's still the right way to look at the opportunity pipeline? Or has it changed? And then on the adjusted EBITDA guidance for the year, can you clarify to the extent to which mask set costs are included? Will there be any chip-related mask set costs that we should be incorporating into our OpEx modeling? Harminder Sehmi: Sure. So every pipeline is dynamic, and we've seen meaningful traction in the Asia Pacific region in particular. We have -- Dinakar talked about Stephen Patak joining us as CRO. So he's got -- he's working through -- he's got very good visibility of what's going to support 2026 revenue. And whether we use pipeline as a public measure, for us, it's really about trying to get contracts signed and converted. Having said all of that, the pipeline is still significant. It's very significant. It does change. The geopolitical tensions have had some -- a bit of an impact on some deployments where we're not quite sure when they will come back in. The Nokia partnership and the AI services platform will add to our pipeline, which isn't in the numbers today. So let me leave that there. And then the second point was about the adjusted EBITDA. As you know, the core design of our chip is common across the road map. And the good thing is that our engineers, in-house engineers whose costs are really in the payroll, they continue to work on adding features and reacting to what's happening in the marketplace. The external costs, so when you're talking about mask sets, that's tape out, that will be in 2027 and beyond. But the early part of the third-party external costs, I see some of those kicking in towards the second half. And that's generally going to be third-party IP that we buy and some of the professional services that we pay for the third-party physical design companies. Operator: Our next question comes from Richard Shannon with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Richard Shannon: Maybe a follow-up on one of the prior questions here, maybe looking at a different angle here on calendar '26. Would love to get a sense of relative to this $130 million guidance for the year, how much of this is in backlog or some sort of commitments here. I think last call, you talked about kind of visibility of $160 million in 2 of your biggest customers. Obviously, we're 1 quarter through that, but love to get a sense of what that support looks like. And then maybe to ask more specifically, how do we think about customer concentration or mix this year within that? Harminder Sehmi: So yes, we do have -- we announced those 2 large contracts. They still remain -- we're still delivering against those. The -- as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, Richard, the pace at which those purchase orders come in are kind of determined by the end user, the customers, what they're going to deploy. We have added new customers into our pipeline, and they too have a -- so backlog may be a different way to look at it. We'd like to think that if you want -- if you've got a design win and you are -- a customer has a need for either edge or as we'll find out over the coming weeks and months, AI services, customers draw down by issuing purchase orders on us. And so we stay close to them in order to manage our own supply chain and so that we can play with those. I hope that, that helps a little bit more explaining -- understanding why we are comfortable about our $130 million guidance. Yes, you said about customer concentration. I don't know, Dinakar, if you want to add. Dinakar Munagala: The customer concentration is -- we're actually moving beyond our initial customers. As I mentioned previously, the use case, once it's perfected, it's relevant to more customers. So we're getting that pull. And AI inference is growing very rapidly. I mean, there was a point of time, 1 training chip -- for every 1 training chip, there were like 4 or 8. Now we're hitting numbers like 16, right? And this is rapidly changing. So the key message is having a hybridized platform with our AI services that we can deliver into these use cases within the same customer as well as across other customers is seeing quite a bit of momentum. Richard Shannon: Okay. Fair enough. My follow-up question here is regarding Nokia, a very interesting and powerful press release you had earlier this year about an MOU here. Would love to understand what are kind of the next steps here, especially announceable steps in this relationship and when you ultimately look for it to be contributing to backlog and eventually revenues. Dinakar, I thought -- or excuse me, I think, Harminder, I think you mentioned in one of your replies maybe talking about sometime end of next year, which seemed kind of a long time process. So I just want to clarify that's what you meant there. Dinakar Munagala: Right. So let me start and Harminder can add. So we are actually quite excited with the whole Nokia relationship. They started almost 6 months ago on a visit to Singapore, where we met with their Asia Pacific leadership. We showed them our platform, and they got visibly excited and then they saw how this allows for a collaboration for them to participate in the AI infrastructure build-out. So the tangible next steps, right, we are building a joint solution, an AI platform focused on inference needs into their customers as well as customers that we can bring to the table, their networking stack plus our AI system stack, software stack. And this is the joint solution that we will actually demonstrate and launch at GITEX Asia in maybe less than a couple of weeks. There is going to be a joint go-to-market co-selling into their customers, system integrators, cloud service providers and enterprises. And that is the -- those are the near-term next steps. Harminder Sehmi: Yes. Sorry, Richard, I don't know whether I misspoke or maybe you misheard. No. The revenues from AI services platform generally, of which, of course, Nokia will be part as a partner is towards the end of this year. So as Dinakar mentioned, we're launching certain aspects of the platform sooner. And as more and more APIs are developed, that just allows us to expand the population that can start to pay for or utilize these services and, of course, pay us for it. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Kevin Cassidy with Rosenblatt Securities. Christopher Myers: This is Chris Myers on for Kevin Cassidy. I think you guys already answered my question. It was going to be about the revenue timing on the Nokia MOU. But I guess, in general, if you could just talk a little bit more about that broader opportunity set and if there's similar infrastructure wins that could come up that are, I guess, along the lines of this deal? Dinakar Munagala: Yes. We do have similar opportunities that we are working on in other continents. And as they materialize, we'll be sure to update you. There is, of course, Asia, quite a bit of momentum we are witnessing. Africa is another place that we have seen some initial traction. Of course, U.S. as well, there is massive infrastructure happening, and they do want hybridized AI to serve business outcomes, right? Less to do with what's under the hood, but more about, hey, can you solve my business outcome in a certain CapEx and OpEx spend? These are the kind of questions that our team gets asked. And our solutions are a perfect fit also because we are seeing that the model -- average model size is dramatically shrinking, right? These models rival the larger models, and they still achieve the same business outcome. And this is a perfect fit for our graph streaming architecture. In combination with GPUs, we're able to deliver to this outcome. So we're seeing such kind of momentum. This is across the board, right, wherever our sales teams are present. Operator: And I would now like to turn the call back over to Dinakar Munagala for any closing remarks. Dinakar Munagala: Thank you, operator. Before we close, let me briefly recap. We delivered strong revenue growth and expanded our global footprint, driven by key partnerships, including Nokia and cloud service providers in Asia Pacific as well as our work with state government initiatives in India. We're preparing to launch our Blaize AI services platform in Q2, positioning us to capture the next phase of AI monetization while improving our revenue mix and margin profile. At the same time, we're seeing a clear shift towards smaller task-specific models that deliver strong performance with far greater efficiency. This aligns directly with our graph streaming processor architecture and strengthens our position as AI infrastructure build-out continues to scale. I also wanted to acknowledge the situation in the Middle East. Our priority remains the safety of our employees, partners and customers in the region, and we are committed to maintaining continuity and stability in our operations. Thank you to our analysts, investors as well as our customers and partners for your continued support. We look forward to updating you the next quarter. Operator: Thank you. This concludes the conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Before you buy stock in Blaize, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Blaize wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut are built for long-term growth and could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $462,983!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,375,447!* That performance is why people listen. With a track record of beating the S&P 500 by nearly 5x, Stock Advisor offers a distinct advantage. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built for the long haul. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2026. This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Blaize (BZAI) Q4 2025 Earnings Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool

Image source: The Motley Fool. May 14, 2026 at 5 p.m. ET Chief Executive Officer — Dinakar Munagala Chief Financial Officer — Harminder Sehmi Unknown Executive: Before we begin the prepared remarks, we would like to remind you that earlier today, Blaize Holdings, Inc. issued a press release announcing its first quarter 2026 results. Earnings materials are available on the Investor Relations section of Blaize Holdings, Inc.'s website. Today's earnings call and press release reflect management's views as of today only and include statements related to our 2026 financial guidance, revenue, gross margin, competitive position, anticipated industry trends, market opportunities, products and financing opportunities, all of which constitute forward-looking statements under the federal securities laws. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in or implied by these forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties associated with our business. For a discussion of material risks and other important factors that could impact our actual results, please refer to the company's Form 10-K and Amendment #1 to Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, and our Form 10-Q for the period ending March 31, 2026, including the Risk Factors section therein and today's press release, both of which can be found on our Investor Relations website. Any forward-looking statements that we make on this call are based on assumptions as of today, and other than as may be required by law, we undertake no obligation to update these statements as a result of new information or future events. Information discussed on this call concerning Blaize Holdings, Inc. industry, competitive position and the markets in which it operates is based on information from independent industry and research organizations, other third-party sources and management's estimates. These estimates are derived from publicly available information released by independent industry analysts and other third-party sources as well as data from Blaize Holdings, Inc.'s internal research. These estimates are based on reasonable assumptions and computations made upon reviewing such data and Blaize Holdings, Inc.'s experience in and knowledge of such industry and markets. By definition, assumptions are subject to uncertainty and risks, which could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the estimates. During this call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures should be considered as a supplement to and not a substitute for measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. For a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures discussed during this call to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please refer to today's press release. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Dinakar Munagala, CEO of Blaize Holdings, Inc. Dinakar Munagala: Thank you, Lana, and good afternoon, everyone. We came off a breakout growth year in 2025, and we expect 2026 to continue that trend. Q1 strengthened our commercial foundation through several new contracts and partnerships. First, we expanded our NeoTensr contract, bringing the total potential value to $70 million. We signed a strategic partnership agreement with Winmate, a publicly traded leader in ruggedized computing with the intent to close approximately $15 million in business in the first year. We deepened our joint engagement with Nokia across Asia Pacific. Together, we stood up a joint AI innovation lab advancing hybrid AI rack scale development. The engagement also includes a strategic partnership with Datacomm, one of Southeast Asia's leading cloud service providers. Finally, we announced Blaize AI Services and will bring our first application service to market. Q1 revenue came in at approximately $2.7 million. This reflects a global memory shortage that limited server availability from one of our trusted suppliers and delayed orders. Customer demand remained intact throughout the quarter. We expect to secure the inventory needed to deliver over $11 million to a single customer in the second quarter of this year and we are reaffirming our full year 2026 revenue guidance of $130 million. At GITEX AI 2026, in April, one of the largest AI showcases in Asia, we announced Blaize AI Services, which we expect to turn AI infrastructure into production-ready APIs that cloud service providers, data center operators and system integrators can deploy, monetize and resell. Today, we are going to announce the next step in execution, the upcoming launch of our face recognition AI service, the first in a series of application-level services running on the Blaize Hybrid AI platform. Why this matters? AI services will complement our hardware sales with recurring application layer revenue per query. It's higher margin, it's stickier, and it scales with our partners' growth, not just with their CapEx cycle. Face recognition is the first proof point, additional high-demand services, including intelligent document processing will follow. We have signed a contract with NeoTensr that is expected to generate up to $50 million in revenue in the first year. This builds on more than $20 million in revenue that we recognized in Q4 of 2025, bringing the total potential value to approximately $70 million. The development uses a co-branded AI server built on Blaize Quad card. Each server handles 200-plus simultaneous camera streams with advanced AI analytics while running LLM and VLM inference on the same infrastructure. This is what our hybrid AI architecture was built for, real-time perception at the sensor layer, advanced reasoning on the same rack, no round trip to a distant cloud. The rollout is expected to span multiple cities across Asia Pacific in multiple phases. Each phase is expected to drive higher-margin revenue as the AI services layer takes hold. Earlier this month, we entered into a strategic agreement with Winmate. Together, we will integrate Blaize AI into ruggedized systems, drones, handhelds, vehicle-mounted units and embedded devices for mission-critical operations, border security, maritime, essential infrastructure and field health care. Beyond the contracts I just described, we are advancing a series of rack-scale hybrid AI engagements anchored by our joint partnership with Nokia. This work reaches cloud service providers and infrastructure partners. These opportunities are multisite, multiphase with hundreds to thousands of edge nodes per program. They span smart city, sovereign data center and large-scale ruggedized field use cases. The architecture is hybrid GSP plus GPU at rack-scale, orchestrated by Blaize AI Services stack. The pattern is consistent. Customers want sovereign control of their data. They want efficiency. They want application-level AI services they can resell. Hybrid AI delivers all 3. Stepping back, the AI infrastructure conversation is shifting fast. A year ago, the industry was focused on one thing, massive centralized GPU clusters for training. Today, the conversation moved decisively towards sovereign language model, inference at the edge, in-country at unit economics that actually work at scale. That shift is what Blaize was built for. Three pillars: number one, sovereign AI infrastructure. Governments and large enterprises across Asia, Middle East and Europe demand compute that stays within their borders under their control. Hybrid rack-scale enables this without hyperscaler economics. Number two, smaller LLM-based AI services. Most enterprise AI workloads do not need a frontier model. They need a tightly tuned domain-specific model on infrastructure they can afford. Our hybrid architecture runs vision and language workloads on the same rack, opening the service revenue our partners can monetize for query. Number three, programmable energy-efficient compute. This is where the Blaize GSP advantage compounds. Performance per watt, deterministic latency, a software stack that serves vision, LLM and VLM workloads on the same hardware. Hybrid rack-scale is the unit of deployment for the next phase of AI. We are building toward it, and our partners are buying in. On May 6, we closed a $35 million equity offering, supported by a group of large institutional investors. This capital strengthens our balance sheet. The proceeds will support our commercial deal commitments, continued AI services development, rack-scale hybrid platform advancement and next-generation platform development. Blaize is a company executing against one of the most significant opportunities in AI history. Rack-scale hybrid AI, sovereign infrastructure, the strategic path for recurring AI services revenue and partnerships that put Blaize at the center of the AI inference build-out. Contracts are expanding, partnerships are deepening across an increasingly diverse base of AI use cases. And finally, engagements are advancing in the field. So with that, I'll turn it over to our CFO, Harminder Sehmi. Harminder Sehmi: Thank you, Dinakar, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to share our first quarter 2026 results today. First quarter revenue was $2.7 million, up 170% (sic) [172%] year-on-year and in line with the pre-release issued on April 14. As we flagged at that time, this was impacted by an industry-wide shortage of high-bandwidth memory or HBM, the specialized memory chip that is necessary for AI servers primarily used for training or running large language models. That shortage delayed an order to one customer, NeoTensr, that we now expect to fulfill in the second quarter at a value of more than $11 million. This is about a timing issue. Customer demand remains strong and over 70% of the revenue billed to NeoTensr in Q4 of last year has been collected to date. Beyond NeoTensr, revenue in the quarter included delivery of software licenses and servers to our primarily U.S.-based customer drawn from inventory on hand. As noted on earlier calls, our road map for hybrid servers mitigates against these challenges. Our partner-branded servers powered by Blaize cards deliver competitive AI inference performance without requiring HBM. We expect those servers to begin shipping in the second half of this year, and we have already placed forward orders for Blaize chips and cards. We're exploring ways in which to strategically procure certain memory cards now to meet our projected demand into 2027. We believe this approach helps derisk our projected revenue growth as the data center opportunities begin to crystallize. In parallel, we are developing a comprehensive rack-scale service solution to address data center inference workloads. We will continue to deliver enhancements to the application features on our AI services platform throughout the year. Given the timing of large orders and the early stage of data center expansion, we expect revenue to be back half weighted this year with visibility increasing as opportunities convert. Gross margin was 58% this quarter, up from 11% in the fourth quarter of 2025. Two factors drove the expansion. First, the mix shifted towards our higher-margin software and Blaize-powered hardware. Second, the HBM-intensive NeoTensr order shifted into the second quarter. As previously indicated, blended gross margins are expected to be compressed by the higher portion of third-party hardware in our revenue mix in the next 2 quarters. As we begin the transition to deliver more inference servers and recognize recurring software revenues, blended gross margins in the fourth quarter of 2026 should exceed 30%. We anticipate further expansion in gross margin in 2027 as our partnership with Nokia opens additional data center opportunities globally. Net loss for the first quarter was $22.7 million compared to the net loss of $147.8 million for the same period a year ago. Q1 of 2025 included significant noncash items and onetime merger transaction accounting adjustments. Consistent with previous calls, I'd like to spend a few moments breaking these numbers down to provide clarity about the underlying results, including singling out quarter-on-quarter trends where helpful. Total operating expense, including stock-based compensation of $8.9 million was $25 million in this quarter. This was a decrease of $14.7 million year-over-year. Q1 of 2025 included $11 million of stock-based compensation and $12 million in transaction expenses related to the business combination. The cleaner story is in our operating discipline. Research and development costs of $5.8 million in the first quarter, excluding stock-based compensation, were marginally lower than the prior quarter cost of $5.9 million. Selling, general and administrative expenses, again, excluding stock-based compensation were $10 million in the first quarter of 2026, up $1.6 million sequentially. Adjusted EBITDA loss for the first quarter this year was $13.9 million, $1.5 million better than the loss in the first quarter of 2025 and $1.9 million higher than the fourth quarter of last year. We ended the first quarter with a cash balance of $33.3 million on March 31, 2026. On May 6, we announced our $35 million equity raise that extends our runway to the middle of 2027 and adds a new base of shareholders. This round drew strong participation from high-quality institutional investors with deep expertise in data center infrastructure investments. This growth capital will enable us to deliver against demand to accelerate customer rollouts, lean into the data center opportunity and invest in our product road map. We maintain close relationships with our key vendors and continually seek to secure favorable payment terms, which is particularly important during this period of supply chain constraints. As our data center opportunities gain momentum, we also intend to explore appropriate project financing partnerships to support deployments at scale. Finally, our revenue outlook for full year 2026 remains unchanged with the second half meaningfully stronger than the first. Our adjusted EBITDA loss guidance also remains unchanged at between $45 million and $50 million for the year. In closing, our recent equity raise was well subscribed and drew strong participation from marquee investors with exposure to the data center infrastructure ecosystem. Our AI services platform and rack-scale hybrid AI developments are resonating strongly as the market shifts towards inference and real business outcomes from AI. And finally, we have great and growing partnerships in place to support revenue growth. With that, I'll turn it back over to the operator. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Kevin Cassidy with Rosenblatt Securities. Kevin Cassidy: Congratulations on maintaining the $130 million for the year. When we look at that $130 million, how would you expect it to be spread across geographically for you? Harminder Sehmi: So it's -- the NeoTensr contract, of course, is expected to contribute a significant portion of the $130 million. There are other opportunities in Asia Pac through the Nokia partnership. Datacomm is the one that we announced. That should start to feature towards the end of Q4. And we have other edge opportunities in Europe that are also expected to be part of that $130 million number. So it's spread around Europe, Asia Pac. Dinakar, I don't know if you want to add. Dinakar Munagala: Yes, the pipeline is quite strong in North America as well. And we are beginning to discuss some commercialization via orders that in the U.S. as well as in Africa as well. As they materialize, we'll, of course, be sure to announce them. Kevin Cassidy: Okay. Maybe could you also talk about the effect that maybe the war in Iran might have on some of your opportunities there for security? Dinakar Munagala: We have actually received significant inbounds for our drone detection system use case that we've demonstrated. This is all about perimeter security kind of use cases. And yes, there's an increased momentum in terms of opportunities coming our way. Of course, as these materialize into POs and revenue, we will keep announcing them. Kevin Cassidy: Okay. And just one more question on the supply chain. So I think in your pre-announcement, you had said that you're expecting product to be shipped in the April quarter first. Did that happen? And is it only the memory that's the long lead times? Or are you having trouble with other products also? Harminder Sehmi: So these are the HBM-intensive memory sort of servers and NeoTensr is one of the early customers for the business we do there. So it's actually obtaining the server itself. One of the reasons that we explained in Q1, we could have secured supply, but we would have actually had to pay premiums that we weren't prepared to at the time. As we move forward into Q3, Q4 and our hybrid servers become available and particularly the one we're really excited about is the one with NeoTensr, the white labeled one, which has our Quad PCIe card in it, then some of those supply chain problems should diminish somewhat. But I think the macro sort of environment is still something that we all need to keep an eye on. Operator: Our next question comes from Richard Shannon with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Richard Shannon: I'll ask a very quick tactical question here regarding the outlook here for the second quarter. Harminder, I think you mentioned you're targeting $11 million for one particular customer. Is that the estimate or starting point you would like us to think about? Or could it be somewhat or meaningfully higher than that? Harminder Sehmi: It will be somewhat higher, but again, it depends on just getting -- maybe in our one-to-ones, Richard, we can talk a little bit more openly about that. But for now, we have good visibility on getting the NeoTensr delivered in addition to 1 or 2 others that we have in mind. Richard Shannon: Okay. Perfect. Second question, I guess, for probably both of you, but I want to ask about the Blaize AI services. You're talking about the first application being face recognition rolling out here. I'd love to get kind of a few different questions about this. First of all, over what time period do you expect this to be rolled out and ultimately bring first revenue recognition for you? Are there any particular end markets where you expect to be first adopted? And then the last part is, how do we think about kind of the revenue contribution over the life cycle of your equipment relative to that equipment sale? Is there a percentage we should be thinking about? Just any way to kind of provide a mental model for that, that would be great. Dinakar Munagala: Sure. I can take the first part and then Harminder can jump in. AI services, certainly, it is exciting to our cloud service provider partners as well as data centers because it allows them to monetize their infrastructure that they've invested in and that's driving all the momentum. So initial application, of course, we have video-based applications that we are working on, which we're actually working with anchor partners as well as the facial recognition. And the initial target is around use cases around smart kitchens, around immigration, those class of use cases where face rec is pretty widely used. Initial anchor customers are in the Asia region. Also things like citizen safety, elderly care, et cetera, there's some software that we've developed that is actually being well received. In addition to this, document processing is something that we will be next launching, and that's announcing -- it's already under development, and we will be releasing it to early access cloud service providers once it's complete. And this is actually quite helpful because from an economic standpoint, the cloud infrastructure that they invest will be monetized, the recovery, return on investment is much faster because they'll be able to monetize it through these services. I'll let Harminder... Harminder Sehmi: Yes. Your other question was the time period. We expect from Q4 onwards to start to deliver some of the CapEx. So if you stand back, the AI services comprises of Blaize-powered servers, hybrid servers. So there's a certain amount of CapEx involved, which we recognize straight away. And then there is a recurring revenue element associated with monetizing the APIs. And that, of course, there will be some sort of a contract in place, but the revenue recognition will be monthly as usage takes place. But Q4 is when we start to see some of that featuring in our revenue mix. I actually expect to see AI services as a whole becoming a significant feature of 2027 revenue mix and more of it being some of this recurring revenue because we have the opportunity to basically trade off some of the upfront margin that we would make on the CapEx sale in place of higher margin of ongoing software revenues. Dinakar Munagala: And just to add that although we spoke about these 2 or 3 areas, there's quite a strong and compelling road map behind this that we are announcing and showing our early access partners, and it's resonating well with them. This is actually helping us significantly in terms of translating the conversations into actionable, how they place orders and become long-term partners with us. Richard Shannon: Okay. Great. My last question, I'll jump on the line here is just a follow-up on Nokia. Obviously, a great partner to have here with worldwide reach. It seems like your first big partnership with Datacomm seems to be the kind of the champion of Indonesia here. How do we expect to see or how should we look for success in other places in Southeast Asia through Nokia? How are those developing? What should we expect to see from that during 2026? Dinakar Munagala: So we started off about 6, 7 months ago with Nokia. And the initial action was to develop a joint pod, rack-scale offering that comprise both Nokia and Blaize hardware as well as AI services software. And we've demonstrated this at GITEX Asia. That was well received. And there's a pretty strong pipeline of customers behind that cloud service providers, infrastructure players, system integrators that we've been working with. And the first conversion is Datacomm, and there are others behind it. So as these contracts start materializing, we'll start announcing them. I don't know if you want to add any more. Harminder Sehmi: And just the only thing I'd add is the other thing we're really excited about is the rack-scale hybrid server work that's happening right now because as you recall, a couple of quarters ago, we introduced the whole concept of AI services platform. And what we're now starting to see is that concept resonating really well with cloud service providers. Something that Dinakar has mentioned been mentioning for a while is the faster we can help these Tier 2 players to reduce their ROI through a combination of Blaize hardware and other partner solutions, then the faster we will see the adoption of real-world outcomes from AI being utilized by customers. Operator: Our next question comes from Craig Ellis with B. Riley Securities. Craig Ellis: I wanted to pick up where you left off talking about AI services and just clarify, inside of the expectation for $130 million in revenues this year, what have you incorporated for AI services? Harminder Sehmi: If I take a combination of the hardware and some of the software, probably about 15% to 20%. Craig Ellis: Got it. And then another lens into the $130 million, we've got more HBM-dependent configurations and HBM free configurations. If we look at the $130 million on the systems side of the business away from services, how does the expectation split between what's dependent upon HBM and what would be HBM free? Harminder Sehmi: So if you'd asked me this question maybe 3, 4 months ago, I would have said a large portion of the NeoTensr early contract that we've got would be more HBM intensive. What's actually forcing a faster adoption of -- towards our hybrid solutions is the fact that these servers are now becoming uneconomic for some of the smaller players. So out of the $130 million, maybe 20% or so would be the HBM sort of intensive stuff. But I'd see -- I'd expect to see a migration. Our servers start to come on stream in the second half of this year and at scale. And the faster we can get that done, the faster we can make sure that our own supply chain is unencumbered, then that transition will happen that much faster. Dinakar Munagala: Yes. Just to add that quite a bit of momentum around our -- the fact that we were able to demonstrate a real end business case return on investment using DDR technology. I think that's actually resonating well with customers. So majority of the $130 million is based on DDR, LPDDR kind of memories. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Scott Searle with ROTH. Scott Searle: Maybe just a couple of follow-ups on Blaize AI services. I wanted to clarify in terms of the ramping recurring model, is that revenue share? Or is that going to be purely capacity driven? And then also to follow up on a couple of the earlier questions, I think you said, Harminder, about 15% to 20% would be tied to that either in CapEx or otherwise in calendar '26. Is all of that to occur in the fourth quarter? And then what's the early thought process then in 2027? You said it would be significant. Just wondering if you could frame it for us. And then I had a couple of follow-ups. Harminder Sehmi: Okay, sure. So the recurring revenue is partially revenue share, but we also have developed a very rich library of AI models, which we're already monetizing with some of the sales that we've made so far. So it's going to be a combination of the particular deals that we strike with the partners that we've got in cloud service providers, the cloud service provider partners that we get through rev share, through licensing of some of those libraries that we've developed. And then in -- yes, the 15% to 20%, I expect largely in Q4. It's just a question of when those servers of ours become available at scale. Scott Searle: Got you. And in the past, you guys have talked about a total qualified opportunity pipeline. I'm wondering if you could give us some indication in the ballpark of where that might be. And Dinakar, there were a couple of comments that I found interesting. I think you referenced the United States. some opportunities. I wonder if you could talk about the application in the end market. And I think specifically, you said within Europe, more edge AI applications, and you've mentioned drones a couple of times. I'm wondering how small and scalable do the solutions go? Are you going out to the drones themselves in ruggedized applications? Or is it an other infrastructure that ends up being drone detection? Dinakar Munagala: So the combination of both. If you see, we do have this small [indiscernible] factor, form factor that can go into a drone. So we do have a pipeline based on that. We also have the connectivity layer to a command and control center and where our servers reside. And there, you could do actions like drone detection, any kind of early drone security warning, which is actually quite an interesting use case amidst what's happening globally. So I'd say it's a combination of both. To the earlier question about U.S., the range of opportunities are from energy-efficient data center. That's one of the initial and driving thing because our servers are inherently lower in power. And therefore, the OpEx for the end cloud service provider and the cloud and the data center operator is much lower. At the same time, using our AI services, they can monetize the infrastructure. So that's driving the U.S. business. And I don't know if you want to. Harminder Sehmi: Yes. So you asked about the pipeline. So look, pipeline is constantly evolving. For us, it's a sizable number. We -- and we're prioritizing the near-term opportunities and particularly those that leverage our -- the hybrid AI services advantages. What we are transitioning to focus on, and I'll talk -- start to talk a lot more about this on the next call is about our contracts and POs, about our bookings, about backlog and revenue. I think these are much more meaningful metrics that enable folks like yourselves and investors to get a sense of where the revenue growth is -- how the revenue growth is developing. Scott Searle: Very helpful. And lastly, if I could, I'll throw out one more. Just the competitive landscape, it's rapidly shifting. It's rapidly evolving out there in terms of edge AI and data center hybridization. I'm wondering who you're seeing on the short list and who you're really competing against besides the large obvious guys? Dinakar Munagala: So we're actually complementing quite a bit of GPU-based designs. So people look at us as a healthy way to reduce both CapEx and OpEx. So that's one. The second piece is often the discussions are around, hey, I have these enterprises, right? They really care about the use case that they're trying to solve within a certain CapEx and OpEx budget. So really, those are the frameworks that we get in. And then having a programmable solution and the right software and AI services helps us piece together along with our system integrator partners, solutions for the business. So it's less to do with who's a head-on competitor, but more about how we deliver to a certain business value, and that's what is resonating and leading to wins. Operator: I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to Dinakar Munagala for closing remarks. Dinakar Munagala: Thank you for your questions. And let me share a few thoughts before we close. The inference market is now and Blaize is positioned at the center of it. 2025 was a breakout 20x growth year and the contracts and partners that we discussed today are extending the trajectory into 2026. NeoTensr drives our Asia Pacific edge data center expansion with $70 million in total value. Nokia anchors our rack-scale engagements and AI services engagements across cloud service providers and infrastructure partners globally with Datacomm extending our reach across Southeast Asia. Winmate brings Blaize into ruggedized platforms for mission-critical operations and embedded edge infrastructure. Customers are validating our hybrid AI rack-scale platform and our AI services layer as the right way to address the inference economy. The momentum is real, and we're excited and we expect to continue this trajectory in the coming quarters. Thank you for your time and continued support. Operator: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Before you buy stock in Blaize, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Blaize wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $472,205!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,384,459!* Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 999% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 208% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of May 15, 2026. This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Blaize (BZAI) Q1 2026 Earnings Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool

This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Revenue: $2.7 million in Q1 2026, up 170% year-on-year. Gross Margin: 58% in Q1 2026, up from 11% in Q4 2025. Net Loss: $22.7 million in Q1 2026, compared to $147.8 million in Q1 2025. Operating Expenses: $25 million in Q1 2026, including $8.9 million in stock-based compensation. Adjusted EBITDA Loss: $13.9 million in Q1 2026. Cash Balance: $33.3 million as of March 31, 2026. Equity Offering: $35 million closed on May 6, 2026. Full-Year Revenue Guidance: Reaffirmed at $130 million for 2026. Adjusted EBITDA Loss Guidance: Between $45 million and $50 million for 2026. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 6 Warning Signs with BZAI. Is BZAI fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Release Date: May 14, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Blaize Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:BZAI) expanded its Neotensor contract, bringing the total potential value to $70 million. The company signed a strategic partnership with Winmate, aiming to close approximately $15 million in business in the first year. Blaize Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:BZAI) deepened its joint engagement with Nokia across Asia-Pacific, including a strategic partnership with Datacom. The launch of Blaize AI Services is expected to generate recurring application layer revenue, complementing hardware sales. The company closed a $35 million equity offering, strengthening its balance sheet and supporting commercial deal commitments. Q1 revenue was impacted by a global memory shortage, limiting server availability and delaying orders. The company reported a net loss of $22.7 million for the first quarter. Gross margins are expected to be compressed in the next two quarters due to a higher portion of third-party hardware in the revenue mix. Supply chain constraints, particularly with high-bandwidth memory, continue to pose challenges. The company's revenue outlook for 2026 remains unchanged, indicating potential risks in meeting financial targets. Q: How is the $130 million revenue guidance for 2026 expected to be geographically distributed? A: The NeoTensor contract will contribute significantly, with additional opportunities in Asia-Pacific through the Nokia partnership. Datacom will feature towards the end of Q4, and there are edge opportunities in Europe. North America and Africa are also expected to contribute as commercialization discussions progress. Harminder Sehmi, CFO Q: What impact might the war in Iran have on your security opportunities? A: We have received significant interest in our drone detection system for perimeter security use cases, and there is increased momentum in opportunities. As these materialize into purchase orders and revenue, we will announce them. Harminder Sehmi, CFO Q: Can you provide more details on the Blaize AI services, particularly the face recognition application? A: The face recognition application targets use cases like smart kitchens and immigration. Initial customers are in Asia, with applications in citizen safety and elderly care. We expect revenue from these services to start in Q4 2026, with significant contributions in 2027. Dinakar Munagala, CEO and Harminder Sehmi, CFO Q: How does the competitive landscape look for Blaize in edge AI and data center hybridization? A: We complement GPU-based designs, offering solutions that reduce both CapEx and OpEx. Our focus is on delivering business value through programmable solutions and AI services, which resonates well with enterprises. Dinakar Munagala, CEO Q: What is the expected contribution of AI services to the $130 million revenue guidance for 2026? A: AI services, including hardware and software, are expected to contribute about 15% to 20% of the revenue. This will largely occur in Q4, depending on the availability of our servers at scale. Harminder Sehmi, CFO For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.

Interested in Blaize Holdings, Inc.? Here are five stocks we like better. Blaize reaffirmed its full-year 2026 revenue guidance of $130 million despite a Q1 revenue miss caused by HBM-related server shortages and a delayed NeoTensr order. Management said demand remains strong and expects the quarter’s shortfall to be a timing issue rather than a change in outlook. Partnership momentum is a major growth driver, especially the expanded NeoTensr deal, which now has a potential total value of about $70 million, plus new agreements with Winmate and Nokia. Blaize said these deals support deployment across Asia-Pacific and other markets, with large portions of revenue expected in the second half of 2026. Blaize is pushing recurring AI Services revenue alongside hardware sales, starting with face recognition and other applications that can be monetized through APIs. The company also raised $35 million in equity, extending its cash runway into mid-2027 while it works to reduce reliance on HBM-heavy systems. Blaize (NASDAQ:BZAI) executives said the company remains on track for its full-year 2026 revenue target despite a first-quarter revenue shortfall tied to constrained availability of AI servers using high-bandwidth memory. Chief Executive Officer Dinakar Munagala said on the company’s first-quarter earnings call that Blaize “came off a breakout growth year in 2025” and expects 2026 to continue that trend, citing new contracts and partnerships across Asia-Pacific, Europe and other markets. First-quarter revenue was approximately $2.7 million, which Chief Financial Officer Harminder Sehmi said was up 170% year over year and in line with the company’s April 14 pre-release. → Rocket Lab Just Hit a New All-Time High—Time to Buy or Let It Breathe? Management attributed the first-quarter result to an industrywide shortage of high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, that limited server availability from one supplier and delayed orders from NeoTensr. Sehmi said Blaize now expects to fulfill more than $11 million in orders to NeoTensr during the second quarter. “This is about a timing issue,” Sehmi said. “Customer demand remains strong.” He added that more than 70% of revenue billed to NeoTensr in the fourth quarter of 2025 has been collected to date. → Micron Investors Face a High-Stakes Moment After the Latest Rally Blaize reaffirmed its full-year 2026 revenue guidance of $130 million. Sehmi said the company continues to expect revenue to be “back half-weighted” as large orders and data center opportunities develop. The company also maintained its adjusted EBITDA loss guidance of $45 million to $50 million for the year. Gross margin in the first quarter was 58%, up from 11% in the fourth quarter of 2025. Sehmi said the improvement reflected a mix shift toward higher-margin software and Blaize-powered hardware, as well as the delay of the HBM-intensive NeoTensr order into the second quarter. He cautioned that blended gross margins are expected to be compressed over the next two quarters because of a higher portion of third-party hardware in the revenue mix. By the fourth quarter, the company expects blended gross margins to exceed 30% as it transitions toward more inference servers and recurring software revenue. → How Bad Could Tesla’s Cybertruck Recall Be for Shares? Blaize reported a first-quarter net loss of $22.7 million, compared with a net loss of $147.8 million in the year-earlier period. Sehmi said the prior-year quarter included significant non-cash items and one-time merger transaction accounting adjustments. Total operating expense, including $8.9 million in stock-based compensation, was $25 million, down $14.7 million from a year earlier. Adjusted EBITDA loss was $13.9 million, which Sehmi said was $1.5 million better than the first quarter of 2025 and $1.9 million higher than the fourth quarter of 2025. Munagala said Blaize expanded its NeoTensr contract, bringing total potential value to approximately $70 million. The company has signed a contract with NeoTensr expected to generate up to $50 million in revenue in the first year, building on more than $20 million in revenue recognized in the fourth quarter of 2025. The deployment uses a co-branded AI server built on Blaize Quad cards, with each server handling more than 200 simultaneous camera streams with advanced AI analytics while also running large language model and vision-language model inference on the same infrastructure, Munagala said. He said the rollout is expected to span multiple cities across Asia-Pacific in multiple phases. The company also entered into a strategic agreement with Winmate, which Munagala described as a publicly traded leader in ruggedized computing. The agreement is intended to close approximately $15 million in business in the first year. Blaize and Winmate plan to integrate Blaize AI into ruggedized systems, drones, handhelds, vehicle-mounted units and embedded devices for mission-critical operations, border security, maritime, essential infrastructure and field healthcare. Blaize also emphasized its joint engagement with Nokia across Asia-Pacific. Munagala said the companies stood up a joint AI innovation lab focused on hybrid AI rack-scale development. The engagement includes a strategic partnership with Datacom, which Munagala described as one of Southeast Asia’s leading cloud service providers. Munagala said Blaize announced Blaize AI Services at GITEX AI 2026 in April and plans to bring its first application service, face recognition, to market. He said the services are intended to turn AI infrastructure into production-ready APIs that cloud service providers, data center operators and system integrators can deploy, monetize and resell. “AI services will complement our hardware sales with recurring application layer revenue per query,” Munagala said. “It’s higher margin, it’s stickier, and it scales with our partners’ growth, not just with their CapEx cycle.” During the question-and-answer session, Munagala said initial face recognition use cases include smart kitchens, immigration, citizen safety and elderly care, with anchor customers in Asia. He said intelligent document processing is also under development and will be released to early-access cloud service providers once complete. Sehmi said AI Services includes Blaize-powered hybrid servers, which produce upfront capital equipment revenue, as well as recurring revenue from API monetization recognized monthly as usage occurs. He said Blaize expects AI Services to begin contributing to the revenue mix in the fourth quarter and to become a more significant feature of the company’s 2027 revenue mix. In response to an analyst question, Sehmi said approximately 15% to 20% of the 2026 revenue outlook includes a combination of hardware and software tied to AI Services, largely expected in the fourth quarter. Management said Blaize’s hybrid server roadmap is intended to reduce exposure to HBM constraints. Sehmi said partner-branded servers powered by Blaize cards are expected to deliver competitive AI inference performance without requiring HBM, with shipments expected to begin in the second half of 2026. He said Blaize has placed forward orders for its chips and cards and is exploring ways to strategically procure certain memory cards to meet projected demand into 2027. In the Q&A session, Sehmi said roughly 20% of the company’s $130 million 2026 revenue outlook may be tied to HBM-intensive systems, with the majority based on DDR or LPDDR memory configurations. Blaize ended the first quarter with $33.3 million in cash as of March 31. On May 6, the company closed a $35 million equity offering supported by institutional investors. Sehmi said the raise extends the company’s runway to the middle of 2027 and will support commercial deal commitments, AI Services development, rack-scale hybrid platform advancement and next-generation platform development. Munagala said the market is shifting from centralized GPU clusters for training toward sovereign AI infrastructure and inference at the edge. He said customers are seeking control over data, improved efficiency and application-level AI services they can resell. “Hybrid AI delivers all three,” Munagala said. Blaize (NASDAQ: BZAI) is a fabless semiconductor company that designs and develops hardware and software solutions for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning applications at the edge. The company’s core technology is centered on its proprietary Graph Streaming Processor (GSP) architecture, which combines dataflow computing with a highly parallel matrix processing engine to deliver real-time AI inference with low power consumption. Blaize’s platform is aimed at customers seeking to deploy sophisticated AI workloads in environments where power efficiency, latency and form factor are critical. The company offers a hardware portfolio that includes standalone GSP modules, PCIe cards and M.2 form-factor boards, alongside its Blaize AI software stack. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. The article "Blaize Q1 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat. View MarketBeat's top stocks for May 2026.

Four new strategic partnerships announced with NeoTensr, Nokia, Datacomm Diangraha, and Winmate Blaize AI Services platform announced at GITEX AI 2026, with face recognition being the first application-level AI service Strengthened capitalization through $35 million registered equity offering supported by large institutional investors Full year 2026 revenue guidance reaffirmed at $130 million EL DORADO HILLS, Calif., May 14, 2026--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Blaize Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: BZAI, NASDAQ: BZAIW) ("Blaize," the "Company," "we," "us," and "our"), a leader in programmable, energy-efficient edge AI computing, today announced financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2026, reflecting continued strong and focused execution as edge AI infrastructure draws increased global attention. Blaize reflected a breakout growth year in 2025, and expects 2026 to continue that trend, anchored by four new strategic partnerships, the rollout of the Blaize AI Services platform, and a strengthened capital position. These developments are anticipated to bring a diversified and expanded customer pipeline geographically and broaden Blaize’s exposure across data center, sovereign AI, and rugged edge markets. "Our recent commercial engagements each mark something specific about where Blaize is heading. Our new NeoTensr contract has recently resulted in an $11 million purchase order, which we expect to fulfill in the second quarter. Nokia brings us into the global AI infrastructure space through its AI cloud provider business, with Datacomm as the first reference cloud service provider customer of that joint engagement. We expect our partnership with Winmate to result in Blaize chips in rugged platforms at commercial scale across public safety and critical infrastructure. The rollout of Blaize AI Services, starting with face recognition, marks a shift in our model toward additional recurring, API-based revenue," said Dinakar Munagala, co-founder and CEO of Blaize. "Together these extend our reach, deepen the pipeline, and shape a more durable long-term revenue mix." Business and Operational Highlights Asia Pacific Edge Data Center Expansion with NeoTensr. Blaize signed a contract with NeoTensr valued at up to $50 million for co-branded edge AI, building upon Blaize’s fourth quarter 2025 order from NeoTensr of over $20 million. The partnership targets multi-edge inference deployment across Asia Pacific using Blaize’s hybrid architecture and the new Blaize AI Services stack. Announcement of Blaize AI Services and Face Recognition. At GITEX AI 2026, Blaize introduced Blaize AI Services, a platform designed to help cloud providers, data center operators, system integrators, and enterprises deploy application-level AI services faster and at lower cost. Blaize AI Services is expected to create recurring and higher margin revenue. Face recognition, as the first application service on the platform, has now been released, signifying the Company’s addition of recurring, API-based, per-query revenue to its hardware revenue. Additional services are expected to follow. Blaize, Nokia, and Datacomm Strategic Alliance. Blaize, Nokia, and Datacomm announced a strategic alliance to deliver hybrid AI inference infrastructure across Southeast Asia, with the joint architecture designed for pre-integrated deployment combining AI Services and compute, network, security, and lifecycle automation. The parties are exploring AI inference solutions across Indonesia, with initial focus on physical AI, public safety, surveillance, and industrial AI applications. Datacomm has cited a 50% surge in regional AI inference demand over the past six months. Winmate Strategic Partnership. Blaize and Winmate signed a strategic partnership agreement to bring AI to rugged defense and critical infrastructure systems, with the parties intending to close approximately $15 million in business during the first year and expectations to scale meaningfully in subsequent years. Joint solutions combining Blaize’s energy-efficient, industrial-grade AI chips with Winmate’s rugged platforms are expected to include drones, handhelds, vehicle mounted units, and embedded edge devices used by border security, maritime, defense, and healthcare operations. "Our recent equity raise strengthened the balance sheet and drew strong participation from high-quality institutional investors, including marquee names with deep exposure to the data center and AI infrastructure ecosystem. The well-subscribed offering extends our financial runway and supports the growth initiatives ahead," said Harminder Sehmi, Chief Financial Officer of Blaize. "We remain focused on disciplined execution, with particular emphasis on building the inventory needed to fulfill our contracted pipeline." First Quarter 2026 Financials First quarter 2026 revenue was $2.7 million, an increase of 172% year over year. Gross margin expanded to 58% compared to 11% in the fourth quarter of 2025. Net loss was $22.7 million compared to net loss of $147.8 million in the first quarter of 2025. Adjusted EBITDA loss was $13.9 million compared to an Adjusted EBITDA loss of $15.4 million in the first quarter of 2025. Strategic Equity Raise On May 6, 2026, Blaize announced the pricing of a registered offering of 18.9 million shares of common stock at $1.85 per share, supported by a group of large institutional investors. The $35 million in proceeds, before fees and expenses, are expected to support execution of commercial deal commitments, continued development of Blaize AI Services, advancement of the rack-scale hybrid platform, and next-generation platform development. Strategic Vision Blaize is building toward hybrid rack-scale as the deployment unit for the next phase of AI. Our strategy is anchored on three pillars: sovereign infrastructure with customer-controlled compute; small LLMs as a service monetized per query through partners; and programmable, energy-efficient compute that runs vision and language workloads on a single stack. Financial Outlook for Full Year Ending December 31, 2026 The following forward-looking statements are based on current expectations, and actual results may differ materially, as described below in "Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements." Revenue of approximately $130.0 million Adjusted EBITDA loss in the range of $45.0 million to $50.0 million Stock-based compensation of approximately $34.4 million Weighted average shares outstanding of approximately 142 million shares Earnings Conference Call Dinakar Munagala, co-founder and CEO of Blaize, and Harminder Sehmi, CFO of Blaize, will host a conference call at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time today, May 14, 2026, to discuss the company’s financial results and outlook. A live webcast will be accessible on Blaize’s investor relations website at ir.blaize.com, and an archived conference call webcast will be available on Blaize’s investor relations website for one year following the live call. About Blaize Blaize delivers a programmable AI platform, purpose-built for AI inference workloads in real-world environments. Its Hybrid AI architecture combines the Blaize GSP (Graph Streaming Processor), an efficient AI processor, with GPU-based infrastructure, enabling AI inference workloads to run across edge, cloud, and data center. Blaize solutions support computer vision, multimodal AI, and sensor-driven applications across smart cities, industrial automation, telecommunications, retail, logistics, and defense. Blaize is headquartered in El Dorado Hills, California, with a global presence across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. To learn more, visit www.blaize.com or follow us on LinkedIn @blaizeinc. Non-GAAP Measures In addition to financial measures presented in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the U.S. ("GAAP"), we report certain key financial measures that are not required by, or presented in accordance with, GAAP. Non-GAAP financial information is presented for supplemental informational purposes only, should not be considered in isolation of, or as a substitute for or superior to, financial information presented in accordance with GAAP, and may be different from similarly titled non-GAAP measures used by other companies. Accordingly, you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this information. We believe that along with our GAAP financial information, our non-GAAP financial information when taken collectively and evaluated appropriately, is helpful to investors in assessing our operating performance. In conjunction with net loss calculated in accordance with GAAP, we also use EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA, as defined below, to evaluate our ongoing operations and for internal planning and forecasting purposes. EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA EBITDA is defined as "Earnings before interest, income taxes, depreciation, and amortization". Adjusted EBITDA is defined as EBITDA further adjusted for non-cash items such as stock-based compensation, changes in fair value, and operational income and expenses that are not expected to be ongoing, as discussed below in the footnote to "other adjustments". In reliance on the exception provided by Item 10(e)(1)(i)(B) of Regulation S-K, we have not reconciled the forward-looking Adjusted EBITDA (Non-GAAP) for the full fiscal year 2026 included above because we are unable to quantify certain amounts that would be required to be included in net income (loss), the most directly comparable GAAP measure, without unreasonable efforts due to the high variability and difficulty in predicting, with reasonable certainty, certain items excluded from Adjusted EBITDA. Consequently, we believe such reconciliation would imply a degree of precision that would be misleading to investors. Preparation of such reconciliations would require a forward-looking balance sheet, statement of income and statement of cash flow, prepared in accordance with GAAP, and such forward-looking financial statements are unavailable to Blaize without unreasonable effort. For the same reasons, Blaize is unable to address the probable significance of the unavailable information. We expect the variability of these excluded items may have an unpredictable, and potentially significant, impact on our future GAAP financial results. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), and Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"), including statements regarding our 2026 financial outlook; stock-based compensation; weighted average shares outstanding; release of the AI Services platform; the engagements with NeoTensr, Nokia, Datacomm, and Winmate, or the ultimate value of those contracts; regional growth, the expectations for AI infrastructure ecosystem development and AI services deployment, projected margin improvement, the industry in which Blaize operates, market opportunities, and product offerings. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the following words: "may," "will," "could," "would," "should," "expect," "intend," "plan," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "project," "potential," "continue," "ongoing," "target," "seek" or the negative or plural of these words, or other similar expressions that are predictions or indicate future events or prospects, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words. Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections and other statements about future events that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual future events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this document, including but not limited to: (i) changes in domestic and foreign business, market, financial, political and legal conditions; (ii) the ability to maintain compliance with stock exchange listing standards; (iii) failure to realize the benefits of the business combination of Blaize and BurTech Acquisition Corp., which may be affected by, among other things, competition, the ability of the combined company to grow and manage growth profitably, maintain relationships with customers and suppliers and retain its management and key employees; (iv) the ability of the Company to successfully market its products and services; (v) the ability of the Company to successfully deploy its technologies across customer settings; (vi) changes in applicable law or regulations; (vii) the outcome of any legal proceedings that have been or may be instituted against Blaize; (viii) the effects of competition on Blaize’s future business; (ix) the ability of the combined company to issue equity or equity-linked securities or obtain debt financing; and (x) those factors discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on March 24, 2026, our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on May 14, 2026, and other documents filed by Blaize from time to time with the SEC. These filings identify and address other important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and Blaize assumes no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law, including the securities laws of the United States and the rules and regulations of the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Blaize does not give any assurance that it will achieve its expectations. The financial projections in this release are forward-looking statements that are based on assumptions that are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond Blaize’s control. While such projections are necessarily speculative, Blaize believes that the preparation of prospective financial information involves increasingly higher levels of uncertainty the further out the projection extends from the date of preparation. The assumptions and estimates underlying the projected results are inherently uncertain and are subject to a wide variety of significant business, economic and competitive risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the projections. The inclusion of financial information or projections in this press release should not be regarded as an indication that Blaize, or its representatives and advisors, considered or consider the information or projections to be a reliable prediction of future events. The independent registered public accounting firm of Blaize has not audited, reviewed, compiled or performed any procedures with respect to the projections for the purpose of their inclusion in this press release and, accordingly, has not expressed an opinion or provided any other form of assurance with respect thereto for the purpose of this press release. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260513469702/en/ Contacts Blaize Contact [email protected] www.blaize.com Investors [email protected]