Crypto Miners Fuel $13.6B AI Bet: Aschenbrenner’s Bold Move Shocks Markets

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Crypto miners back Leopold Aschenbrenner’s $13.6B AI bet

Leopold Aschenbrenner, a former OpenAI researcher, manages a fund called Situational Awareness which has grown to $13.67 billion. The fund currently has the largest investments in Bitcoin mining companies.

Summary

  • Aschenbrenner’s Q1 2026 13F filing shows equity exposure rising from $5.5b to $13.67b, with miners including IREN, Core Scientific, and Riot Platforms among the top longs.
  • The fund simultaneously opened $7.46b in put options against Nvidia, Broadcom, Oracle, and the VanEck Semiconductor ETF.
  • Aschenbrenner’s thesis targets Bitcoin miners for their power grid access and land, which AI companies urgently need for data center buildout.

Daniel Gross, formerly of OpenAI, submitted a financial report to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on May 15th, which was officially accepted on May 18th. This report, covering the first quarter of 2026, reveals that his fund’s investments in stocks more than doubled from $5.52 billion at the end of 2025 to $13.67 billion by March 31st. Gross was terminated from OpenAI in 2024 following claims of an information leak.

The biggest investments are currently focused on Bitcoin mining companies like IREN, Core Scientific, Riot Platforms, CleanSpark, Bitfarms, Bitdeer, and Hive Digital, as well as companies involved in energy and computing, such as Bloom Energy, SanDisk, and CoreWeave. As Fortune magazine recently pointed out, the idea is that, in the age of AI, reliable electricity and computing power could become more valuable than the AI algorithms themselves.

Bitcoin miners as AI infrastructure

Aschenbrenner believes the growth of AI will be limited by the availability of power and suitable land, rather than by the supply of computer chips. Bitcoin mining operations already control prime locations with the necessary power and grid connections that AI companies will struggle to secure quickly. In a detailed 165-page report, he argues that the development of computing infrastructure – things like data centers – will be the key factor in how quickly artificial general intelligence (AGI) advances, not just improvements to the AI models themselves.

The industry is seeing a significant shift in how companies are earning revenue. As crypto.news reported, TeraWulf made $21 million from hosting AI and high-performance computing applications in the first quarter of 2026 – more than they earned from Bitcoin mining. Core Scientific, a company held by Aschenbrenner, is planning to transform its Pecos facility into a large, 1.5 gigawatt AI data center, and will convert 300 megawatts of its current Bitcoin mining power for this purpose.

Why the semiconductor short matters

In addition to its positions in mining stocks, the fund purchased $7.46 billion worth of put options betting against the chip industry. The biggest bets were placed against the VanEck Semiconductor ETF ($2.04 billion), Nvidia ($1.57 billion), Oracle ($1.07 billion), and Broadcom ($1.01 billion), according to regulatory filings.

This connection creates a logical argument: if the real benefit of AI goes to those who control it, rather than the companies that make the computer chips, then chip companies may see their value decrease while those operating the AI systems could profit.

As we previously reported at Crypto.news, many cryptocurrency mining companies are shifting their focus to high-performance computing (HPC) for artificial intelligence. Firms like Bitdeer and Riot are quickly converting their mining facilities to accommodate AI data centers. You can find detailed information on these holdings in the Situational Awareness LP 13F tracker available on 13f.info.

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2026-05-18 22:34