Leopold Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness Fund Bought Bloom Energy Stock Before a 176% Run. Here Is the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Stock He Owns That I Think Will Go Parabolic Next.

Leopold Aschenbrenner possesses a rare gift: the ability to see around corners in the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution and anticipate the next major breakthrough. A former OpenAI researcher, Aschenbrenner burst onto the scene in 2024 after self-publishing a 165-page manifesto titled Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead.

In it, he posits the idea that artificial general intelligence (AGI) is not decades away but could actually arrive within years, driven by big tech's relentless scale-up of computing power and data. But he didn't stop at writing. He subsequently launched Situational Awareness LP, a hedge fund that is focused on emerging infrastructure bottlenecks as AI scales from hype to reality.

Investors should pay close attention because Aschenbrenner isn't a typical stock picker. He operates with an intimate level of clarity on how fast the various AI labs are moving and where market-beating returns will be made. His timely bet on Bloom Energy (NYSE: BE) proves this point. Now, the same logic points squarely toward another one of his holdings, Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), as the next multibagger in the making.

Image source: Getty Images.

Betting big on AI's need for efficient power

Aschenbrenner's investment in Bloom Energy flowed directly from his Situational Awareness thesis. Before Wall Street caught on, he understood that training and running AI models would add to electricity demand at scales that existing power infrastructure simply couldn't handle.

Bloom Energy's solid-oxide fuel cells offer a clever workaround for powering data centers: on-site, modular power generation that can be deployed efficiently on location at hyperscale facilities. This helps them bypass congested utilities and provides them with reliable baseload electricity around the clock.

According to the fund's 13F filings, the Situational Awareness fund initiated a position in Bloom Energy during the fourth quarter of 2025. As of the end of the quarter, that position comprised 10.1 million shares worth $875 million, as well as 408,500 call options.

While I can't say for sure when Aschenbrenner made his purchase, Bloom stock's average price during the fourth quarter was roughly $105. In hindsight, this was a genius buy. As AI capital expenditures continue to explode and chatter around the power constraint problem is more commonly found in the media, Bloom's revenue and stock price have surged. As of the closing bell on May 1, Bloom's share price was $290.81 -- representing a roughly 176% estimated return.

This position was far from chasing momentum in a hot sector. Rather, Aschenbrenner correctly anticipated the degree to which energy supplies would be a fundamental choke point for the AI sector months earlier than most traders. His edge came from understanding the timeline of AI infrastructure build-outs at a granular level. In other words, he realized that scaling that infrastructure wasn't an abstract theory but rather a roadmap to a multitrillion-dollar infrastructure tailwind. Bloom's stock validated this foresight in a highly profitable fashion.

Intel is early in the compute and foundry supercycle

During the first quarter of 2025, the Situational Awareness Fund purchased 20.2 million call options in Intel. In my view, the same situational awareness that identified energy shortages is also highlighting Intel's unique position at the intersection of advanced process technology, custom silicon, and domestic foundry capacity.

Even after a considerable run-up in 2026, Intel remains a compelling multibagger candidate because the tailwinds from inference, agentic AI, and next-generation data centers are only now beginning to converge in the company's favor.

Intel's Q1 results underscore exactly why Aschenbrenner sees it as far more than a turnaround story. Its data center and AI (DCAI) group delivered robust 22% growth year over year, while the foundry business expanded 16%, reflecting accelerating demand for both AI chips and the advanced manufacturing to produce them.

Smart investors understand that Intel's gains aren't coming from legacy PC cycles. The company's newfound growth stems from its deepening integrations into hyperscale AI stacks where deployments increasingly demand more central processing units (CPUs), custom accelerators, and cutting-edge packaging.

What is most encouraging is how aggressively Intel is partnering with the very giants shaping the most influential AI systems. The company's Xeon 6 processors were selected as the host CPUs for Nvidia's DGX Rubin NVL8 systems. At the same time, Intel deepened its collaboration with Alphabet, powering cloud instances while jointly developing custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) infrastructure processing units (IPUs) aimed at reducing latency and power demand for expanding AI workloads.

I think Aschenbrenner identified Intel early because his framework homes in on the computing and manufacturing bottlenecks that most investors are not fully appreciating. He saw that AI's explosive scale would require not only more power (hence Bloom) but also high-volume silicon production and custom chips designed for inference-heavy workloads beyond those designed by Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and Broadcom.

Intel's current stock price momentum confirms Aschenbrenner is right, for now. With the AI revolution still in its early chapters, Intel's progress demonstrates the company is benefiting from the secular shifts he predicted, where measurable traction from AI hyperscalers is just beginning to compound. For investors who share his forward-looking lens and get into it soon, the upside in Intel stock could be enormous.

Adam Spatacco has positions in Alphabet and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Bloom Energy, Broadcom, Intel, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.