Here's your cheat sheet for where the smart money went in tech during the third quarter: semiconductors, semiconductors, and more semiconductors. If you wanted confirmation that hedge funds are betting big on the picks-and-shovels play for artificial intelligence, the Q3 13F filings just delivered it wrapped in a bow.

Among the top 132 WhaleScore-tracked funds, Micron Technology Inc. (MU), ASML Holding NV (ASML), Apple Inc. (AAPL), NVIDIA Corp (NVDA), Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSM) dominated the quarter's most aggressively accumulated tech stocks. Also quietly cracking the early top ranks? Applovin Corp (APP) and Lumentum Holdings Inc. (LITE), two names that weren't exactly on everyone's radar heading into the quarter.

Micron Becomes The Surprise Consensus Pick

Here's the headline: Micron topped the information technology heat map as the No. 1 "hot" tech stock based on rising interest, rank jumps and new top-10 placements among institutional portfolios. And it wasn't even close.

For a company that spent years overshadowed by AI darlings like Nvidia, Micron has suddenly become the surprise consensus pick among hedge funds betting on memory demand tied to hyperscale training clusters. The thesis is straightforward: if you're building massive AI infrastructure, you need a lot of high-bandwidth memory, and Micron is sitting right at that intersection.

ASML wasn't far behind in the rankings. Apparently, hedge funds have decided the world's technological future depends on whoever can make extreme ultraviolet lithography machines fast enough. And since there's still only one supplier of that critical equipment, ASML looks like a fairly obvious bet on continued chip manufacturing advancement.

The Big-Platform Tech Comeback Story

The heat map tells a second story that's just as interesting: hedge funds quietly tiptoed back into big-platform technology names during the quarter. Apple, Snowflake Inc. (SNOW), Palantir Technologies Inc. (PLTR), Oracle Corp (ORCL) and ServiceNow Inc. (NOW) all saw a pickup in "increased or initiated" positions among information technology holdings.

The Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) reappearance was particularly noteworthy. After years of being largely left out of the AI boom narrative, funds finally started betting that on-device AI is no longer just marketing fluff but a genuinely monetizable business pivot. It's about time, frankly.

Nvidia And The Semiconductor Supergroup Heat Up

Nvidia wasn't the top-ranked information technology stock this quarter, but the buying momentum clearly returned as funds recalibrated their positions around the Blackwell-Rubin upgrade cycle. The chip giant remains central to the AI infrastructure build, even if it's no longer the only game getting attention.

AMD, Broadcom Inc. (AVGO), Applied Materials Inc. (AMAT), Lam Research Corp (LRCX) and Taiwan Semiconductor all surged up the tech-sector rankings as hedge funds leaned heavily into the full AI supply chain. We're talking about everything from foundries to networking equipment to cloud infrastructure. This is a bet on the entire ecosystem, not just one or two marquee names.

Even Vertiv Holdings Co (VRT) made the list, which tells you something important: hedge funds now view data center cooling and power management as an AI trade, not an industrial one. When the plumbing stocks start moving, you know the infrastructure buildout is being taken seriously.

What This Means For The Market

This isn't a broad market signal about the direction of equities in general. It's a tech-sector-specific message, and it's pretty clear: top hedge funds just spent the third quarter accumulating the very companies powering the next phase of AI infrastructure development.

With Micron, ASML, Nvidia and Taiwan Semiconductor leading the institutional heat map, alongside surprise climbers like Applovin and Lumentum, the message is straightforward: big money is betting the next leg of artificial intelligence won't be driven by chatbots and consumer applications.

Instead, they're betting on the hardware arms race underneath them. The picks and shovels, if you will. The memory chips, lithography machines, fabrication equipment and data center infrastructure that make any of this possible in the first place. That's where institutional capital flowed in Q3, and it's a pretty strong indication of where hedge funds think the real value creation is happening right now.