It was the near-collapse of an AI hedge fund run by a 24-year-old, and on this week’s Switzer Show, Shaw and Partners’ Adam Dawes used it to make a point about how fast the AI trade can turn. The fund is Situational Awareness, run by Leopold Aschenbrenner, a German-born former OpenAI researcher. According to reporting by CNBC and the Financial Times, it had grown to about US$45 billion, with leverage of up to 400%, before the late-July sell-off in semiconductor stocks triggered margin calls. He then wrote a widely-read essay called “Situational Awareness,” raised money from backers including Stripe’s Collison brothers, and launched the fund named after it. The Nasdaq 100 fell about 10% from its record high, and semiconductor stocks fared worse, shedding more than a trillion dollars in value.