BUDAPEST, HUNGARY--(Marketwired - May 10, 2016) - D-Wave Systems Inc., the world's first quantum computing company, 1QB Information Technologies Inc. (1QBit), a quantum software firm, and financial industry experts today announced the launch of Quantum for Quants (quantumforquants.org), 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, finance 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 in the forums that are a good fit for D-Wave's quantum technology and have been vetted by the community, we can move them from the simulators and run them on D-Wave hardware."
About D-Wave Systems Inc.
D-Wave Systems is the first quantum computing company. Its mission is to integrate new discoveries in physics, engineering, manufacturing, and computer science into breakthrough approaches to computation to help solve some of the world's most complex challenges. The company's quantum computers are built using a novel type of superconducting processor that uses quantum mechanics to massively accelerate computation. D-Wave's customers include some of the world's most prominent organizations, including Lockheed Martin, Google, whose system is hosted at NASA's Ames Research Center, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. With headquarters near Vancouver, Canada, D-Wave U.S. is based in Palo Alto, California. D-Wave has a blue-chip investor base including Bezos Expeditions, BDC Capital, DFJ, Goldman Sachs, Growthworks, Harris & Harris Group, In-Q-Tel, International Investment and Underwriting, and Kensington Partners Limited. For more information, visit: www.dwavesys.com.
About 1QB Information Technologies Inc.
1QBit is a software company dedicated to building quantum-ready development tools and software platforms to solve the world's most demanding computational challenges. The company's platforms enable the development of applications that are compatible with both classical and quantum processors. 1QBit collaborates with leading research institutions and provides software solutions to Fortune 500 companies to solve their most difficult problems in the fields of optimization, simulation, and machine learning. Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, 1QBit's interdisciplinary team of world-class mathematicians, physicists, software developers, and quantum computing experts share a drive to uncover new ways of addressing currently intractable problems using advanced classical and quantum systems. 1QBit is backed by a private investor base led by the CME Group and the Royal Bank of Scotland. For more information, visit: www.1qbit.com
About Marcos López de Prado
Marcos López de Prado is Senior Managing Director at Guggenheim Partners, where he manages several multibillion-dollar internal funds. He is also a Research Fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Computational Research Division (U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science), where he conducts unclassified research in the mathematics of large-scale financial problems and supercomputing. Dr. López de Prado obtained a Ph.D. in Financial Economics, a second Ph.D. in Mathematical Finance from Complutense University, completed his postdoctoral research as a RCC Fellow at Harvard University, and has been a Visiting Scientist at Cornell University's Operations Research Department. His publications are available at www.QuantResearch.org