Palantir was the the worst pain point for Shorts, but SMCI came in as number 3 with Shorts losing an estimated $1.3 Billion on paper. SMCI squeeze score is listed at 100, the max level.

Short Sellers Are Losing Big on Palantir — Here's the Data

BENZINGA 12:30 PM ET 8/19/2026

Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR) has become the single biggest pain point for short sellers in a market rally that is squeezing bears across the board, according to new data from S3 Partners. 

The firm tracks a basket of stocks that score 70 or higher on its 0-100 squeeze scale, meaning conditions are ripe for shorts to get forced out of their positions. Twenty-four names currently qualify for that basket, and the cohort has climbed 13.4% month-to-date, pressuring short sellers across the board.

Palantir’s Outlier Position

Short interest in Palantir(PLTR) now totals $12 billion. That’s the largest dollar short in the basket and well above its $3.37 billion average. The stock is also the group’s biggest gainer, up 41.4% month-to-date. It carries the largest mark-to-market loss for shorts at $5 billion. 

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Benzinga’s short-interest tracker shows bets against Palantir(PLTR) have generally kept growing even as the stock climbs, adding to those unrealized losses. Yet the position covers just 3% of float, leaving the stock with the lowest crowded score in the basket at 32.5. 

Few short sellers are involved, but those involved picked the wrong side.

Mark-To-Market Losses Mount

Recent mark-to-market losses across the basket total roughly $15 billion, and close to two-thirds of that sits in just three names. Palantir(PLTR) accounts for $5 billion, followed by Lumentum Holdings Inc.(LITE) at $3.1 billion and Super Micro Computer Inc.(SMCI) at $1.3 billion. 

All three are also the basket’s biggest movers, each up more than 34%.

The Squeeze Score

S3 Partners builds its squeeze score on top of a separate crowded score, which grades how tightly packed a short position is using short-dollar size, stock loan liquidity, trading volume and short interest. The squeeze score then layers on rising stock-borrow costs and mark-to-market losses, since those factors typically force short sellers to cover.

Palantir’s pain fits a broader pattern across the basket, where the average squeeze score now sits at 80.8. 

Fox Corp. (FOXA) , Workday Inc.(WDAY) and Super Micro all hit the maximum reading of 100. 

Leon Gross , S3 Partners’ director of research, summed up the dynamic: a rising market acts like the tide, lifting all boats — and every squeeze score with them.

The Most Crowded Shorts

Charter Communications Inc. (CHTR) and Fox carry the heaviest crowding scores, at 85 and 80, followed by **EchoStar Corp.(ECHO)**and **Skyworks Solutions Inc.(SWKS)**at 77.5 each, against a 62.0 average. 

Benzinga’s tracking shows Charter Communications’ short interest at 50.40% of its float, the heaviest in the basket.

Cash flow projections can vary greatly depending on the initial assumptions, but the path chosen gives Charles Liang the best chance of achieving his $110 stock price Performance Award Target. I've constructed an FY27 framework to compare against actual performance as the year unfolds.

Parabolic growth scenario after dilutive financing (economy of scale, best leverage from robotics and automation, potential for re-rating, and most importantly fastest Time to Online (TTO) :

Strong growth scenario without dilutive financing (path not chosen):

Supermicro announces Fiscal Year 2026 Q4 financial results.

Highlights:
▸Net sales of $11.1 billion versus $10.2 billion in Q3'26 and $5.8 billion in Q4'25.
▸Gross margin of 17.5% versus 9.9% in Q3'26 and 9.5% in Q4'25.
▸Net income of $1,178 million versus $483 million in Q3'26 and $195 million in Q4'25.

"Our Total AI/IT Solutions strategy continues to deliver strong results, we added several hundred enterprise and other customers in the past year, generated more than $60 billion in new orders, and booked record backlog entering fiscal 2027," said Charles Liang Founder, President and CEO of Supermicro. "As demand accelerates, we are improving profitability through a richer enterprise customer mix and broader adoption of our optimized Data Center Building Block Solutions® (DCBBS) architecture. Combined with continued investment in technology leadership, manufacturing scale, and global compliance, we are enabling customers to deploy AI infrastructure faster and more efficiently."

Thanks to our customers, partners, and the Supermicro team for making this quarter an extraordinary success!

I expected the DCBBS margin contribution but the Enterprise strength was a nice surprise. They've strengthened the Sales organization to help support and grow the Enterprise market.

CHENNAI, Aug 13 (Reuters) - India's Tamil Nadu state said it signed agreements worth 150.5 billion rupees ($1.58 billion) for 16 new projects by overseas investors, including France's Saint-Gobain and U.S. server maker Super Micro Computer(SMCI), as part of a broader investment push...

https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indias-tamil-nadu-sign-pacts-158-billion-new-projects-by-overseas-firms-source-2026-08-13/

SMCI has an earlier Sovereign AI project win in India:

https://investors.gorilla-technology.com/gorilla-technology-announces-2-billion-ai-infrastructure-deal-in-india-with-supermicro-expanding-strategic-collaboration-across-asia-pacific/

Vik Malyala, CBO was in India earlier in the year developing the SMCI Sovereign AI India strategy:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/malyala_dcbbs-indiaai-aiinfrastructure-activity-7431183182047338497-gw-o/

Jensen Huang just dropped a $500 Billion dollar pebble into the funding pool and the ripples will potentially amplify 10x+ into trillions of AI infrastructure spend.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/10/cnbc-exclusive-transcript-cnbcs-becky-quick-speaks-with-nvidias-jensen-huang-wall-street-leaders-on-500b-ai-infrastructure-push-on-closing-bell-overtime-today.html

Charles Liang saw this coming and has positioned SMCI to grow exponentially with the expected resurgence of AI infrastructure funding. Elon Musk saw it too, calling AI a supersonic tsunami. The funding tsunami has been triggered.

SMCI’s $60B Q4 orders, Dell downgrade, and SpaceX synergies

Failsafe Coolant Reveal (June 1)
Liang’s COMPUTEX keynote introduced SMCI’s proprietary Failsafe non‑conductive coolant. This wasn’t a minor product update — it expanded the DLC‑2 moat in a way analysts still haven’t priced in. Leak anxiety is real in liquid‑cooled deployments; Paul Mah’s LinkedIn post about coolant leaks wiping out entire racks and the cleanup aftermath shows why. SMCI wouldn’t likely announce a breakthrough coolant like this unless customers under NDA, NVIDIA and AMD had already run long test cycles validating materials compatibility, electrical behavior, thermal stability, and long‑duration reliability. That kind of testing happens quietly over months, not days.

$39B Orders Announced (June)
Right after the coolant reveal, SMCI disclosed $39B in new orders and dilutive financing. The dilution dominated the news cycle, but strong demand visible to Charles Liang has been building under NDA.

Q4 Intake Clarified at $60B+ (July)
In July, SMCI clarified that the total Q4 intake was $60B+. The June number was only part of the quarter. One quarter’s orders exceeded Dell’s entire $43B AI backlog. That’s when it became obvious the competitive landscape had shifted.

GF Securities Reacts (August)
GF Securities had already upgraded SMCI in May (PT $48), before any of these numbers were public. After SMCI’s $39B and $60B disclosures, GF downgraded Dell in August, citing server share pressure.

Early August: DataVolt Says NEOM Oxagon Will Break Ground Within Months
In early August, DataVolt said the 1.5GW AI data‑center campus at NEOM Oxagon is expected to break ground “within the next two to three months.” This matters for SMCI because sovereign AI customers don’t just buy racks; they buy full‑stack consulting, hardened facility design, cooling architecture, and integration services. These projects involve high‑margin engineering work: designing power centers, hardened rooms, liquid‑cooling layouts, and secure compute zones. Oxagon is explicitly planned as a net‑zero, high‑density AI campus with advanced cooling and energy‑efficient architectures. That’s exactly the kind of environment where SMCI’s DLC‑2 coolant, rack‑level integration, and “AI factory” model shine. As more sovereign AI customers follow Saudi Arabia’s lead, SMCI’s consulting and hardened‑facility revenue becomes a meaningful margin lever.

SMCI’s Long Term Growth Strategy
Liang isn’t a typical CEO. He’s a founder, major shareholder, takes a $1 salary, and has long‑term performance incentives ($110 PT). When he said in May that SMCI could grow with existing financing but would need more capital if revenue doubled, he likely already had visibility into large projects under NDA. The financing move fits the parabolic‑growth playbook: take dilution early to expand manufacturing capacity, then shift toward debt once EBITDA and backlog stabilize.

SpaceX/xAI Compute Economics
SpaceX/xAI recently said their compute deployments have less than one‑year payback and that they’re on track for $100B annualized revenue. When compute economics look like that, the company offering the best AI Factory TTO grows parabolically. Charles Liang is excited to work with SpaceX/xAI and has talked about future collaboration on TeraFab and Space based compute.

Bear Talking Points
SMCI already said Financials remediation is ongoing, and will likely run into FY2027 given the record setting revenue growth. An adverse opinion on internal controls doesn’t mean the financials are wrong — it means the systems need modernization and enhancement to match the scale of the business. That’s normal for companies growing faster than their accounting infrastructure. DOJ rumor‑based fearmongering pops up every quarter and has never been backed by any filing, disclosure, or action against SMCI.

What August 11 Earnings Will Clarify
FY2027 guidance will show how durable this demand cycle is. But the combination of SMCI’s $60B Q4 orders, GF’s upgrade SMCI/downgrade Dell sequence, the June 1 coolant reveal, SpaceX/xAI compute economics, and now DataVolt’s early‑August confirmation that NEOM Oxagon is moving into construction — all point toward structural demand rather than a temporary spike.

DataVolt put out an update saying the NEOM Oxagon 1.5GW AI campus is expected to break ground in the next couple of months.

https://www.agbi.com/tech/2026/08/neom-to-start-constructing-oxagon-ai-data-centre-in-months/

In hindsight, announcing the DataVolt partnership 15 months ago allowed fear, uncertainty and doubt to grow after the initial positive response.

https://data-volt.com/media/breaking-news/datavolt-announces-landmark-deal-with-supermicro-to-accelerate-adoption-of-rack-scale-total-liquid-cooling-it-solutions-for-future-ready-ai-data-centers/

Investors would welcome an update from SMCI. The AI Factory architect doing the design consulting work for these Giga Watt Sovereign AI Factories would be receiving substantial high margin fees from the concept stage right up to final implementation.

What if the $20+ Billion SMCI DataVolt partnership announcement were made now this week instead of 15 months ago?

SpaceX/xAI earnings call

SpaceX CFO Says Current Economics Have Translated Into A Less Than One-Year Payback On Our New Capital Deployments For Compute; Sees $100B Annualized Revenue Run Rate By End Of This Year

With these numbers, SMCI should consider spinning off a Neo-Cloud subsidiary.

The facilities will support a full range of operations, including advanced system design, domestic manufacturing, testing, service, and global distribution of the company’s Data Center Building Block Solutions ® (DCBBS) for AI infrastructure. Expect productivity, quality and margin gains from state of the art robotics and automation used in manufacturing and testing.

This physical footprint is the ultimate operational counterweight to the market's current fear, uncertainty and doubt loop. While armchair critics focus on short-term regulatory timelines, SMCI has successfully built an infrastructure moat that competitors cannot easily copy.

Yesterday, Vertiv earnings reported weakness in the EMEA region. SMCI is reporting strength in the EMEA region and has strategically located support resources:

The Netherlands (The EMEA Gateway)

• The Scale: Strategically positioned European tech hub.
• The Operational Focus: Handles localized system integration, logistics, customization, and deployment services for European cloud providers and Middle Eastern sovereign AI data centers.

By locking down millions of square feet of live factory space and backing it with up to 6000 racks per month (up to 2000-3000 liquid cooled and advanced liquid cool racks) of worldwide delivery capacity, the physical engine is fully primed. They possess the floor space, the active power connections, and the geographic distribution required to turn their $100 billion visible pipeline into revenue—mathematically clearing the path toward the $110 long-term CEO share price award target.

SMCI customer CoreWeave publishes benchmark for Vera Rubin. Shows 10x more tokens per megawatt than Blackwell. Vera Rubin racks are estimated to cost 2-5x as much as Blackwell racks depending on version. Compute energy efficiency could become paramount where datacenter power consumption is coming under scrutiny.

If the customer has access to cheap energy, Blackwell could offer the best value. If the customer is constrained by space or high energy costs, Vera Rubin becomes compelling.

SMCI climbed to $48 after this Moat expansion was announced. I think it was part of the catalyst for the $39 Billion in new orders which was announced a week later.

Supermicro Debuts High-Impedance Coolant for Nvidia Vera Rubin NVL72 Racks at Computex

Jun 2, 2026·6:31 PM
Key points

• Supermicro's SMC PG25-A coolant claims 1,000x higher electrical impedance than standard liquid-cooling fluids, reducing short-circuit risk from minor leaks [1]
• The coolant is integrated into Supermicro's DLC-2 stack for Vera Rubin NVL72 racks, which unify 72 Rubin GPUs and 36 Vera CPUs per rack [2]
• DCBBS blueprints scale from 5MW to 1GW, with deployments scheduled for H2 2026 aligned with Nvidia Vera Rubin general availability [3]
• Each DLC-2 pod includes 5MW cooling towers, four 1.8MW CDUs, 576 direct-to-chip copper cold plates, and the new PG25-A coolant [3]
• SMCI shares are up 75% over the past month, trading at $47.50; NVDA closed at $221.74, up 5% on the day [4]

Supermicro introduced its proprietary SMC PG25-A coolant at Computex 2026 in Taipei, claiming the fluid delivers up to 1,000 times higher electrical impedance than standard liquid-cooling mixtures used in direct-to-chip systems. CEO Charles Liang said the higher impedance means that "in case there are small leaks, when you have a high electrical impedance, the system will not shut down and will keep running" [1].

The coolant is a core component of Supermicro's DLC-2 direct liquid cooling stack, which the company is packaging into its Data Center Building Block Solutions (DCBBS) blueprints for Nvidia's Vera Rubin NVL72 platform. Each Vera Rubin NVL72 rack unifies 72 Rubin GPUs and 36 Vera CPUs with NVLink 6, delivering up to 3.6 exaflops of FP4 inference performance with 75 TB of fast memory [2][3].

https://mlq.ai/news/supermicro-debuts-high-impedance-coolant-for-nvidia-vera-rubin-nvl72-racks-at-computex/

Hypothesis:

• Current and potential customers under NDA were evaluating the new Failsafe coolant around the time of the last Earnings call on May 5. CEO discusses two possible scenarios during call for either strong or parabolic growth.
• On June 1 during CEO Keynote speech at Computex the new proprietary coolant is revealed and showcased in his speech.
• Between May 5 and June 9, a catalyst emerged and SMCI announces $39 Billion in new orders from 20 customers and the parabolic growth path is set for FY2027.

Most people are talking about SMCI’s dilution and ignoring the innovation and growing intellectual property resulting from capital investment. I'm speculating the Failsafe coolant evaluation results motivated customers to lock in access to the SMCI innovation.

Datacenter developers are focused on Leak Anxiety.

PG25‑A and DLC-2, which are arguably the most important reliability innovations in high‑voltage AI datacenters this cycle.

PG25‑A is a proprietary Failsafe coolant, and DLC2 is the rack‑level cooling architecture built around it. Together they eliminate the catastrophic failure mode of 700–800VDC AI racks.

This is not a cosmetic upgrade.
This is a risk‑elimination technology.

Why PG25‑A matters

Traditional water‑glycol coolants (used by Dell, HPE, Lenovo, Inspur, Foxconn) are conductive.
If they leak inside a high‑voltage rack:

• you can short the bus
• destroy GPUs
• blow power shelves
• shut down the rack
• create human safety hazards

PG25‑A is non‑conductive — with electrical impedance reportedly ~1000× higher than legacy PG25.

Leak → no short
Leak → no rack destruction
Leak → no GPU blowout
Leak → no human hazard

This is a fundamental reliability and market advantage.

Imagine being an executive that has to explain why he didn't select SMCI's Failsafe coolant when faced with multi-million dollar liabilities in repairs and downtime from recurring leaks over the multi-year life cycle of a Datacenter.

Supermicro is expanding its footprint with a 4th Silicon Valley Campus to accommodate increased demand for its AI solutions, with approximately 4,000,000 total square feet of office, warehouse, and manufacturing space.

https://www.supermicro.com/en/about/us-manufacturing-expansion?utm_campaign=43213709-Campus%20Expansion&utm_content=382712752&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&hss_channel=tw-374598930

Bullish, entertaining and informative. Intriguing mention of working with many stealth startups, accelerators, asics, liquid cooling for storage systems, novel network topologies...

>A conversation with Dylan Patel, one of the most influential voices on AI infrastructure with Supermicro CBO (Chief Business Officer), Vik Malyala discussing what’s next for AI infrastructure, what it really takes to build for AI at scale. Looking ahead with AMD on Helios and NVIDIA on Vera Rubin and AI Factory, as well as Supermicro liquid cooling.

https://www.supermicro.com/en/featured/cbo-interview-dylan-patel?utm_campaign=25656070-Dylan%20Patel&utm_content=382475290&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&hss_channel=tw-374598930#interview

Jul 15, 2026

BlackRock Chairman and CEO Larry Fink joins 'Squawk on the Street' to discuss the company's quarterly earnings results, latest market trends, impact of AI and technological advancements, benefits of long-term investing, and more.

https://youtu.be/f8FrvkJt4nk?si=bMuTBP2sn6e2-MvE

Starts off with a bullish segment on needing more AI datacenter compute at a faster build rate. He is confident in his investments in AI Datacenters. SMCI is likely receiving Blackrock investment dollars through Saudi PIF/Neom Oxagon.

IBM’s weak quarter is exactly what you’d expect if spend is pivoting into SMCI’s wheelhouse.

IBM’s CEO explicitly said the miss was due to customers reprioritizing capex toward AI hardware.

https://invezz.com/news/2026/07/14/ibm-shares-fall-23-ceo-says-q2-earnings-fell-short-as-customers-spent-more-on-ai/?utm_source=copilot.com

Meanwhile SMCI is growing in:

• GPU‑dense, AI‑optimized x86 servers
• High‑efficiency, liquid‑cooled platforms
• Large AI infrastructure backlogs, where performance, TCO, and deployment speed drive buying decisions.

So when IBM says its infrastructure is struggling, the commonsense read‑through is that budget is rotating toward AI‑first hardware vendors like SMCI, not disappearing.