Jane Street and Hudson River Trading are expanding their access to AI computing power alongside the speed long prized by high-frequency traders, Bloomberg reports. The firms use machine learning in trading research, and larger models require more capacity to train and run, Hudson River's AI head, Iain Dunning, said in the report.
Jane Street's Texas data center houses more than 4,000 Nvidia GPUs across 56 server racks, according to Bloomberg. The firm is also discussing a second facility. At Lefdal Mine Data Centers in western Norway, a portion of Hudson River's data processing takes place. Bloomberg reports that the Norwegian site is one of several facilities the firm uses.
Buying access and backing chips
Hudson River signed a multiyear deal with cloud provider CoreWeave in August and agreed in May to rent Nvidia chips from Lambda, Bloomberg reports. Dunning puts Hudson River's AI spending at $1 billion a year and expects it to grow.
Jane Street bought a $1 billion equity stake in CoreWeave and pledged to spend $6 billion with the company on computing capacity, according to Bloomberg. That $7 billion combines a completed equity purchase with a spending pledge, not money already spent entirely on compute. Jane Street also led an August investment round in chipmaker Etched and became its first customer for finished chips. Citadel Securities takes another route, working with large cloud providers, particularly Google.
Citadel Securities president Jim Esposito said that using those providers lets his teams focus on research rather than managing infrastructure. Optiver CEO Jan Boomaars favors greater control over his firm's computing infrastructure, arguing that cloud providers are more expensive and leave firms less in charge of their future. Bloomberg reported both executives' views.
The uncertain payoff
Bloomberg says firms' secrecy makes their combined compute spending nearly impossible to calculate. Its report warns that costs are climbing, expensive systems could quickly become obsolete and any advantage may be short-lived. Mitesh Agrawal, CEO of chipmaker Positron, takes a more optimistic view: He argues that a computing advantage could generate returns exceeding the cost of the equipment. That potential payoff remains a bet, not a reported result.
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