AI Hedge Fund Situational Awareness is seeking fresh investor capital as semiconductor and artificial intelligence stocks decline.
Founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, the fund has built large bearish positions against chip companies while maintaining long exposure to AI infrastructure.
The Financial Times reported that the fundraising effort comes as semiconductor shares face renewed selling pressure. The strategy allows the fund to benefit from declines among chipmakers without abandoning its broader conviction in artificial intelligence growth.
Fund Holds Billions in Semiconductor Put Options
Situational Awareness LP disclosed a $5.52 billion U.S. equity portfolio in a Form 13F filing covering March 31, 2026. The filing showed put options with a reported value of about $8.7 billion across semiconductor and AI-related companies.
Positions included $2.04 billion linked to the VanEck Semiconductor ETF and $1.57 billion tied to Nvidia. Put options exceeding $1 billion were also reported in Oracle, Broadcom, and Advanced Micro Devices.
Its long holdings followed a different approach. Bloom Energy was the largest reported long position at $879 million. SanDisk and CoreWeave were also major holdings. The fund additionally owned stakes in Bitcoin miners IREN, Core Scientific, Riot, and CleanSpark.
Some mining positions increased during the quarter. The allocation reflects a focus on electricity supply, data centers, and computing infrastructure rather than chipmakers alone.
Public Filings Limit Daily Performance Estimates
An unidentified X account, @LeopoldTracker_, estimated on July 28 that the portfolio lost about $600 million in one session. The account linked the decline mainly to sharp losses in Bloom Energy and SanDisk.
Form 13F filings provide only a partial view of a fund’s exposure. They cover selected U.S. equities and options at quarter-end but exclude cash, foreign securities, short positions, private investments, and several derivatives.
The same tracker said gains in the fund’s put positions may have offset losses in its long holdings. Public disclosures cannot confirm the fund’s actual daily performance.
Aschenbrenner Builds Strategy Around AI Infrastructure
Aschenbrenner gained wider attention in June 2024 after publishing the 165-page essay Situational Awareness; The Decade Ahead. He argued that artificial general intelligence could arrive in 2027 and trigger an “intelligence explosion,” increasing spending on GPUs, data centers, and electricity.
He launched the fund in September 2024. Its website describes the firm as a global equity investor focused on AI as “the dominant driver of global market returns over the next decade.”
Fortune reported that assets under management exceeded $1.5 billion by October 2025. The current portfolio combines bearish semiconductor positions with investments in power suppliers, data centers, and Bitcoin miners. The structure separates AI adoption expectations from the recent semiconductor equity trade.
