Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) remains the most widely held semiconductor stock among US active fund managers, present in 82% of portfolios as of end-August 2026, according to BofA Global Research.

However, traditional long-only managers hold Nvidia at just 1.17 times its S&P 500 weighting, indicating broad but modest conviction. Meanwhile, hedge funds are concentrating bets on other AI infrastructure names, notably Seagate Technology Holdings PLC (NASDAQ: STX) and SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ: SNDK).

Most-Owned Chip Stocks Among US Funds

BofA semiconductor analyst Vivek Arya noted that Nvidia leads ownership, followed by Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ: AVGO) at 78% and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ: AMD) at 51%.

Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) stands out as an outlier. Despite having the fifth-largest market capitalization in the group, it ranks only 19th by ownership, held by just 21% of managers.

Memory Ownership Is Still Expanding

Ownership in memory stocks expanded significantly in August. SanDisk’s ownership jumped nearly nine percentage points to 24%, the largest monthly increase among tracked stocks. Micron Technology Inc. rose approximately six percentage points to 50%, securing the fourth-most-owned spot.

Where Hedge Funds Are Betting

Hedge funds show distinct preferences compared to long-only managers. They are more overweight in Seagate, Teradyne Inc., SanDisk, Synopsys Inc., Arista Networks Inc., CIEN, LRCX, and APH.

Seagate displays the sharpest divergence. Long-only managers held it below benchmark weight (0.86x), while hedge funds held it at 3.44 times the S&P 500 weight. SanDisk also saw heavy hedge fund interest, with positions at 2.57 times benchmark weight versus 1.04 times for long-only funds.

What the Numbers Show

The data reveals a bifurcation in AI investment strategies. While Nvidia enjoys universal inclusion (82%), its modest overweight ratio (1.17x) suggests it is treated as a core, baseline holding by long-only funds. In contrast, hedge funds are taking aggressive, concentrated positions in peripheral infrastructure plays like Seagate (3.44x overweight) and SanDisk (2.57x overweight), indicating a search for alpha in specific sub-segments of the AI supply chain rather than broad exposure through the dominant chipmaker.

Short seller Jim Chanos challenged Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang over the rental economics of artificial intelligence chips, questioning why the company does not lease its own hardware.

Huang described Nvidia’s computing hardware as a "durable and highly rentable" asset, calling it a productive, revenue-generating resource. Chanos responded by asking why Nvidia does not rent the chips directly to customers or simply continue raising prices.

The Rental Debate

The exchange occurred after Huang responded to market data showing price increases for older AI hardware. Huang stated that Nvidia compute is fungible and durable.

Chanos directly challenged this premise in a reply to Huang. "Then why not rent them out yourself? Or simply keep raising prices? $NVDA," Chanos wrote.

Huang’s comments were prompted by a post from Ornn Exchange noting that the rental price for Nvidia’s three-year-old H100 training chip had increased 22% in a month to $3.28 an hour. This increase challenges assumptions that older AI hardware necessarily loses economic value at a steady pace.

Depreciation and Accounting Risks

Chanos has previously criticized the accounting methods used by data center operators. He argued that buyers like Oracle Corp. (NYSE: ORCL) and CoreWeave Inc. (NASDAQ: CRWV) rely on unrealistic six-year depreciation schedules for their hardware.

Chanos argues that the chips can become economically obsolete within three to four years. Adjusting depreciation schedules to reflect a shorter lifespan would drastically increase annual expenses and impact reported earnings, a situation Chanos characterized as a "massive financial risk."

Hedge fund manager Michael Burry echoed these concerns. Burry estimated that major cloud providers could understate depreciation by approximately $176 billion between 2026 and 2028 by extending the useful economic lives of their computing equipment.

Residual Value and Financing Strategy

Despite skepticism from short sellers, market data indicates that older hardware currently retains value. Silicon Data estimates the residual value of six-year-old Nvidia A100 chips remains near $5,000, as customers repurpose them for lower-cost workloads.

Nvidia continues its push to establish AI computing as an investable infrastructure class. The company recently partnered with financial institutions including BlackRock, Blackstone, and Apollo Global Management to mobilize over $500 billion in financing for data centers, a strategy heavily dependent on the sustained rental economics of its hardware.

Stock Performance

At the last check, the NVDA stock was trading 0.17% higher overnight. It was up 21.03% year-to-date, advancing by 34.12% over the last year, and rose 26.94% over the last six months. It closed 2.01% higher at $225.73 per share on Friday.

Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings indicate that NVDA maintains a strong price trend in the long, short, and medium terms, with a solid growth score.