AI-focused hedge fund Situational Awareness has invested $400 million into Source Foundry, a startup founded by Stanford researchers that aims to make chip manufacturing faster and cheaper. According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, the transaction brings the fund's total investment in Source Foundry to $500 million.

Situational Awareness was launched in 2024 by Leopold Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI researcher in his mid-twenties who had no trading experience at the time. Although the fund experienced strong early returns, it recently faced steep losses following a decline in AI infrastructure stocks.

Key developments regarding the fund and startup include:

Situational Awareness's assets under management reportedly declined from $20 billion to $10 billion. At the end of July, the fund sold off the majority of its public portfolio to Ken Griffin's Citadel.

The fund retained its shares in Anthropic despite the public portfolio sell-off. Source Foundry focuses on accelerating and reducing the cost of chip manufacturing.

Aschenbrenner recently held his wedding despite the fund's recent financial setbacks.