AI Fund Invests $400 Million in Chipmaking Startup

According to The Wall Street Journal, the AI-focused Situational Awareness hedge fund continues to make major investments in promising projects despite facing a difficult financial period. This week, the fund invested $400 million in Source Foundry, a startup aiming to accelerate and reduce the cost of chip manufacturing, as TechCrunch.com reports .

Following this major funding round for the startup founded by Stanford University researchers, the fund’s total investment in the project reached $500 million. Experts say that improving semiconductor and chip manufacturing technologies is currently one of the most important and in-demand areas of the technology market.

Changes Led by the Fund and Financial Losses

The Situational Awareness fund was founded in 2024 by Leopold Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI researcher in his twenties who had no stock-trading experience when he started. Although its initial performance generated high returns, the fund has suffered serious setbacks in recent months amid a decline in AI infrastructure stocks.

At the end of July this year, due to the conditions that emerged, Situational Awareness was forced to sell most of its public-equity portfolio to Citadel, managed by Ken Griffin. Nevertheless, the fund managed to retain its stakes in Anthropic.

According to the latest available data, these financial changes reduced the assets under the fund’s management from $20 billion to $10 billion. Despite the difficulties faced by founder Leopold Aschenbrenner, he also took an important step in his personal life and managed to get married.