IIT-M launches new research lab focused on quantitative finance

CHENNAI: IIT Madras on Thursday launched a new research lab focused on quantitative finance.

According to IIT-M, the 'AlphaGrep Quantitative Research Lab' will conduct Exploratory Research Projects in the areas of AI for quantitative finance, including research in financial markets and its microstructure, quantitative investment management and quantitative risk management, among other areas.

AlphaGrep Securities, a quantitative trading and investment firm, is providing CSR Funding of Rs 5.65 crore towards the establishment of this lab.

Highlighting the need for such research centres, V Kamakoti, Director of IIT-M said, "Three decades before, the financial institutions were predominantly run by their legal group, the next decade by their finance/audit group and currently by the Information Technology group. The time is ripe now to look at how AI can be used for effective and efficient conduct of business of these institutions. The proposed lab will be precisely addressing this issue."

The key outcomes envisaged from this research centre includes exploratory projects on applying frontier AI techniques to quantitative finance, training programs for different stakeholders in this space, focused courses for students on AI for quantitative finance and development of data sets and other resources to enable research.

Human resource training in areas of AI for quantitative finance through different programs will be a focus area of this lab.

The Centre would also explore the possibilities of developing new courses related to AI for quantitative finance.