Situational Awareness, an AI-focused hedge fund, invested $400 million into Source Foundry, a chip manufacturing startup founded by Stanford researchers, bringing the fund’s total investment in the company to $500 million, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Source Foundry aims to make chip production faster and cheaper.
The investment comes despite recent turbulence for the fund. Situational Awareness was founded in 2024 by Leopold Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI researcher who had no prior trading experience. The fund posted strong early returns but suffered significant losses in recent months as AI infrastructure stocks declined.
At the end of July, Situational Awareness sold the majority of its public portfolio to Ken Griffin’s Citadel, though it retained its Anthropic shares. The fund’s assets under management reportedly dropped from $20 billion to $10 billion amid the downturn.
Despite the financial setbacks, the new investment signals continued confidence in AI-adjacent infrastructure plays, particularly in semiconductor manufacturing, as the fund navigates a challenging period for AI-linked public equities.
