For the past couple of years, the easiest money in AI investing came from a simple thesis: find the chokepoint, buy the company that controls it, and wait. That trade is over, according to one prominent hedge-fund manager.
Gavin Baker, chief investment officer of Atreides Management, declared on June 16 that the AI “bottleneck trade” has run its course. The firm manages between $4 billion and $7 billion in assets and focuses heavily on technology. Baker is also an early SpaceX investor.
What the bottleneck trade actually was
Baker identified the specific chokepoints that made this trade so lucrative. TSMC wafer capacity, power generation, cooling solutions, optics, and networking equipment were all in desperately short supply as AI buildout accelerated globally.
Companies that controlled any piece of that constrained supply chain could essentially name their price. Demand was so intense that Baker estimated unconstrained annual Nvidia GPU demand at $2 to $3 trillion.
