Serenity (@aleabitoreddit)

I didn’t know Leopold was a fellow MLCC bottleneck investor in Taiyo Yuden (6976) It’s been disclosed today that Situational Awareness owns 5.99% of the company with a ~ ¥17,446/share avg as of June 29th. Current prices are ¥9,797. I actually added some today to show support since Taiyo Yuden is one of the largest % MLCC manufacturers globally.

Holy... We've reached 1,000,000 followers! It's genuinely incredible that so many people care to read about my ideas around AI chokepoints and bottlenecks. From substrates, lasers, actuators, memory, power to some of the most niche parts of upstream supply chains. I've had a lot of fun sharing free thoughts I've come across along the way and tracking whether they get validated over time. A lot worked out, some haven't, and some are still playing out! But honestly, all of this attention has come as a massive surprise to me this year, especially globally, from Sweden, Japan, Korea, to China. Thank you for all your support! I'll be announcing something soon to celebrate.

I've mapped the entire Wall Street bear playbook on AI names: Have your favorite institution/media insert one of these name down below: 1. < ______ [GPUs, Transcivers, MLCC, Memory...] are a commodity set to crash> 2. < ______ [YMTC, CXMT, Dongshan...] from China will flood the market > 3. < ______ [Micron, Nvidia, ...] from unverifiable channel checks is facing issues > 4. < ______ [Kospi, Sivers, ...] is a bubble like the ____ [2007, 2021] crash> 5. <____ [1,2,3, ...] unexpected rate hikes this year> 6. < _____ [Google, Nvidia, Deepseek ...] optimization removes the need of this!> in a new headline, and it's ready to go!

I remain convinced nobody knows how to pronounce or talk about $AAOI in real life. It’s one letter too long to say $TSM or $AMD. And nobody ever says to a friend“Wow, I like applied optoelectronics!”

A very material catalyst came about for Western supply chains from $AAOI, $SIVE / Jabil, to $LITE and Coherent: The Trump administration is drafting a ban of new Chinese optical transceivers and DC devices. Which would likely hit China’s Innolight, Eoptolink, and other Chinese optical interconnect supply chains. "The agency would ban all imports of new transceiver models ​and then exempt many ⁠non-Chinese suppliers from the restrictions" We'll likely see a larger bifurcation of supply chains with even greater importance put on Western players.

Wow, $CMXT is up a very normal +469.98% after going public today. Now valuing it at ~$487.31 billion, up from $85.5 billion. Did any of my Chinese followers buy into the IPO?

$INTC and $AMD to sign CPU LTAs with Chinese customers for AI DCs (Reuters). - Prices of some CPU products have risen more than 40% in China since the start of the year from sources. - Month-on-month increases topping 10% for some products CPUs were already a bottleneck, following CPU ratios due to AI inference... But the broader trend of LTAs seems to be appearing from: - Memory, with $MU, Samsung, $SNDK, and SK Hynix signing DRAM/NAND LTAs. - Photonics, with $LITE, $COHR signing EML LTAs. And recent Trendforce reports that $AMD and hyperscalers are now pursuing CW LTAs. And I'm sure there's many more from MLCCs to all the way to substrates. +1 for the bottleneck investors... hard to be a "bubble that pops" if you have take or pay demand spanning multiple years.

Thanks! I’ve always shared personal research and core thoughts for free. Not trying to sell anything or tell others what to do. And above all, just being transparent about my own returns (win or loss) Maybe this information democratization upsets some business models… When others try and pitch their $40 TA subscriptions that are always right and predicted the semis crash. But if they really believed it, they would have made 5000%+ buying puts and wouldn’t need to market a paywall. Yes, if I’m on 1.4x leverage, and if a portfolio concentrated in memory/photonics underlying crashes -35% on avg… you get a 49% drawdown. I’m just sharing what happens. But I expect AI names to recover since I see demand from compute to energy to memory to networking to be structural.

Feels bad, -49.4% drawdown this month after the recent crash. My portfolio is mainly AI chokepoints and bottlenecks. In the memory, photonics, robotics, and upstream semis, (on margin) which all tend to be higher beta than others. But reduced leverage recently from the crash. I see a lot of people making fun of the drop or AI names, saying it’s obvious that: - “AI is a bubble” - “memory/kospi is a bubble” - “photonics is a bubble” - “humanoids won’t get anywhere” - “neoclouds will get replaced by hyperscalers like Meta” And a bunch of retail + bots saying “sell everything, it’s never going to recover”. But I have conviction that all these themes are backed by structural revenue growth or technological shifts. And I’ve had similar drawdowns back when there admin threatened global tariffs, before markets pulled off a recovery. I personally have a longer horizon + higher tolerance for volatility than others, to see how this plays out. Especially considering a lot of retail view things on a week to week basis: no, my thesis isn’t wrong yet if I project revenue inflection in H2 2027 and it’s 2026 now. Anyway, feels bad short term just wanted to share anyway for transparency.

Just some public market read through from Chinese private VC markets: Institutions are pouring funds into physical AI and world models. 1. Large models / LLMs: ~$23.56B 2. AI infrastructure + technical layer: ~$15.74B 3. Embodied intelligence / physical AI: ~$13.36B 4. AIGC applications: ~$8.79B 5. Autonomous driving + other Top-20 cluster: ~$3.82B, but not apples-to-apples with the above. Some notes: - "Early-stage pure foundation-model funding is basically closed". Looks like more funding is just being put into existing leaders and going into World Model companies. My guess is that we'll likely see the same in the US with Anthorpic/OpenAI consolidation. - "World models have become the biggest consensus in early-stage investment." I said months ago 4D AI/World Models would be the most interesting moving forward, and called out $AEVA as potential exposure. But there's not exactly any pure play exposure. But probably next we'll wait for the next IPOs here in this sector maybe H1 next year. - AIGC application sector is the most mature for AI technology commercialization "Artificial Intelligence Generated Content commercialization is mature but no clear winner yet". Makes sense. in the US there's stuff like Grok Imagine, Google Nano Banana, etc. no clear winner too. especially for video. _ TLDR: Continued funding into AI infrastructure/semiconductor supply chains. Huge capital rotation influx into physical AI / embodied brain / humanoids + world models from capital inflow. Consolidation around leading frontier model companies. Personally just validated what I've been focusing on with Agility Robotics and physical AI players (eg. leaderdrive, harmonic, etc) in public markets... As new potential opportunities in terms of capital rotation. But sadly no world model pure play exposure yet.

SemiAnalysis on $META “overcapacity” and market reactions with $NBIS and others: “We believe Meta’s datacenter and compute will accelerate”. “Capex in 2027 will be shockingly high”. Recent global crash, especially in the photonics sector was stupid… Off misleading narratives of Meta dropping out of AI race to sell excess compute… When in fact things are likely to accelerate from Meta catching up to GPT5.5. I’m personally expecting a sharp V recovery, especially with the names that crashed 50%+ from this narrative.

Wells Fargo: $META intent to sell excess compute is a positive signal around underlying demand and unit economics of AI. “Despite this shift, we don’t expect a pullback in Meta’s capex or that overall compute needs are lower” Regarding Neoclouds: WF thinks it validated the massive AI infra opportunity as well as acquisition opportunities. Despite any potential competition for Neoclouds. I’m inclined to agree with Wells Fargo here and say markets completely misunderstood Meta’s excess compute comment.

I told you making the robots look hot might be a bottleneck: Today, UBTech has now announced its first full-size hyper realistic humanoid robot girlfriend. For adults only to purchase for only ~$145,717.90. -"The U1 series emphasizes attractive appearance and is only available for adults to purchase." - "It Can Imitate Most Human Movements and Expressions, and Also Has Long-Term Memory" - "U1’s surface uses bionic materials and a gel structure to simulate skin texture, elasticity, and a warm touch." UBTECH founder, chairman, and CEO Zhou Jian said on stage that just before going up, he learned that orders had exceeded 11,000 units. Half an hour later, UBtech said the number had been updated to more than 13,361 units. Demand for attractive robots is uncomfortably high.

I wonder if humanoids is going to spark a new bottleneck/industry for robot cosmetics. Like a skin bottleneck. Or Aespa KPOP robot makeover as a service. So if $TSLA Optimus makes tens of millions of humanoids: Who’s going to make them all look hot?

For robotics companies, I have a favorable view on Unitree and Agility Robotics, two humanoid players. And I have largest concentration in Agility Robotics, since I personally prefer US humanoid players. For upstream component exposure, I currently own: - Harmonic Drive (6324) given high content BOM on things like harmonic reduction gear. - Vishay Precision for sensors and a possible candidate for Telsa Optimus. LeaderDrive (688017) and Schaeffler I have favorable views on but don't own personally. Many of the other AI DC players, I have indirect exposure to robotics like memory. Don't recommend anyone to copy, just sharing personal positions/thoughts. Humanoid sector is large, and as seen with Goldman Sachs report that "Korean companies will command a 30% direct and indirect share of global humanoid robot production". Lot of players out there globally. This was an older report but just linking it again since you see all of them pop up in GS institutional reports + what they cover. Agility Robotics is my personal favorite as of now.

Honestly this decade from 2020-2030 might be the most goated in human history. - Scaling massive reusable rockets for orbital compute with $RKLB to $SPCX. - on the cusp of ASI and recursive learning with Anthropic and OpenAI - Backflipping Boston Dynamics and Unitree humanoids to replace the human workforce - Star Wars laser beams from $EOS.ASX to AI DC lasers like $LITE. - Waymo and $TSLA self driving cars everywhere in urban cities - and we get industry Quantum commercialization end of decade This is kinda crazy to be an investor in this timeframe. Feels like every movie from the Star Wars Death Star to Skynet is coming to life. What’s next?

Nah, gonna fill out the job application for $WEN and set up camp behind the dumpsters. Even $MU and $SNDK ridiculous performance today couldn't save my port. Cheering on Japan though, hoping Sweden gets mogged with a 2-0 to represent the 20% drop.