Today D-Wave Systems announced the launch of Quantum for Quants, an online community designed specifically for quantitative analysts and other experts focused on complex problems in finance. Launched at the Global Derivatives Trading & Risk Management conference in Budapest, the online community will allow quantitative finance and quantum computing professionals to share ideas and insights regarding quantum technology and to explore its application to the finance industry. Through this community financial industry experts will also be granted access to quantum computing software tools, simulators, and other resources and expertise to explore the best ways to tackle the most difficult computational problems in finance using entirely new techniques.
“Quantum computers enable us to use the laws of physics to solve intractable mathematical problems,” said Marcos de López de Prado, Senior Managing Director at Guggenheim Partners and a Research Fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Computational Research Division. “This is the beginning of a new era, and it will change the job of the mathematician and computer scientist in the years to come.”
Experts in finance, mathematics, computer science and physics have agreed to participate as editors and content contributors of the community, including:
- Dr. Horst Simon, Deputy Director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)
- Dr. David Bailey, Senior Scientist (retired) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- Dr. Jonathan Borwein, Laureate Professor in the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Newcastle
- Dr. Peter Carr, Executive Director of the Courant Math Finance Program at NYU
- Dr. Kesheng (John) Wu, Berkeley Lab Group Leader
- Dr. David Leinweber, Co-founder of Berkeley Lab’s Center for Innovative Financial Technology
- Dr. Blu Putnam, Chief Economist for CME Group
- Dr. Michael Sotiropoulos, Managing Director, Global Equities at Deutsche Bank Securities Inc.
Through 1QBit, members will be able to access an interactive notebook and a set of tutorials that will allow them to explore applications of quantum software. “Sharing the tools we’ve built with the community will create a better understanding of how quantum computing can be applied to finance, and in turn will inspire the development of additional tools that enable these new applications,” said Landon Downs, President and Co-founder of 1QBit.
Quantum computers have the potential to provide a different approach to solving very difficult finance problems, but it will take the collective intelligence of many experts to do so,” said Vern Brownell, CEO of D-Wave and former CTO of Goldman Sachs. “We co-founded Quantum for Quants as a way to bring together such experts and to provide resources and connections that can’t be found anywhere else. In addition, when we find problems being discussed and vetted in the forums that we believe are a good fit for D-Wave’s quantum technology, we can identify them as candidates for transition from the simulators to a D-Wave system.”
