HSBC says he used quantum computer science to improve bond trading – a “first world”

HSBC announced Thursday that it had successfully used quantum IT in a test to optimize bond trading, making it the first in the world to prove the value of the powerful emerging technology in the financial services sector.

By working with IBM, the bank used a combination of conventional IT and the Heron Quantum processor of the technology giant to provide an improvement of 34% of the price of algorithmic bond price, HSBC said in a shared press release on Tuesday.

Philip Intallura, leader of the HSBC group of quantum technologies, described the trial as “revolutionary first world”. He widened technology in a business video included in the announcement, saying that improving commercial forecasts ultimately means “increased margins and greater liquidity”.

The trial was aimed at testing how quantum computers could optimize requests on the over -the -counter markets, where financial assets are negotiated without centralized or broker serving as an intermediary. Using the latest generation of IBM quantum computers, companies have been able to estimate the probability that a trade should be completed at a price cited with much more precision than standard methods to use conventional computers alone, according to the ad.

“This is something that we already do thousands of times a day and it considers the probability of winning a job,” said Josh Freeland, Algo Credit Chief in HSBC, in the same video.

Marco Pistoia, main vice-president of industry relations at IONQ, an American company of quantum hardware and software, said that the speed and precision of quantum IT allow merchants to react more quickly to the rapidly evolving market.

“This is essential for financial institutions, whose time is gasoline,” he told CBS Moneywatch.

Technology has long been linked to Wall Street Trading. The automation systems used to help traders were installed on the New York Stock Exchange in the 1950s. Two decades later, the first rumbles of algorithmic trading – using computers to automatically execute transactions. About two -thirds of all trades were made using computers in 2009, according to Deutsche Bank Research.

In its test results, HSBC noted that the addition of quantum calculation techniques has shown an improvement compared to classic computers alone to respond to the “very complex nature” of the factors involved in algorithmic professions.

“IBM Heron was able to increase conventional IT work flows to better disentangle the hidden pricing signals in noisy market data that standard and conventional approaches only used by HSBC, resulting in strong improvements in the bond negotiation process,” said HSBC in its ad.

According to HSBC, the trial represents the first empirical evidence that quantum computers can be used to solve practical problems in the trading of algorithmic bonds.

“We have great confidence that we are at the dawn of a new border of computer science in financial services, rather than something far in the future,” said Intalura.

What is quantum computers?

Quantum IT, a new field of computer science and engineering, is based on quantum mechanics to solve problems and process information on finance, logistics, cybersecurity and more.

Amazon, Google, IBM, Intel and Microsoft and have all invested in technology.

According to IBM, while technology is still in development, it will soon exceed conventional superordinators in terms of speed and its ability to solve complex problems.

The Technology Society said that what could take classic thousands of years computers could take quantum IT for a few minutes or hours to be resolved.