AI use lifts participation in WorldQuant contest

Oct 8 (Reuters) - Hedge fund WorldQuant said on Wednesday registrations for this year's flagship global quant research contest have almost doubled from a year earlier, as increased adoption of AI has helped more university students build trading models.

Here are more details:

• The International Quant Championship, run by WorldQuant, a spin-off of Millennium Management, challenges entrants to build mathematical models that forecast price movements across a range of financial instruments

• About 156,000 people signed up this year, compared with roughly 80,000 in 2025, the firm said

• Victor Ayebameru, a student from Adekunle Ajasin University in Nigeria who taught himself quant finance, took first place, highlighting how wider use of AI is lowering entry barriers in quantitative financial trading

• More than 40,000 women participated and approximately 28% of participants came from Africa, said Nitish Maini, chief strategy officer at WorldQuant

• Easier access to AI tools has helped students from different backgrounds to develop trading algorithms, boosting interest in quantitative trading competitions that are becoming key recruiting grounds for major hedge funds

• There was a notable increase in solo participation this year, the hedge fund said

• Global hedge fund firms that manage more than $1 billion in assets saw their combined assets rise by more than 19% to a record $4.05 trillion by the end of 2025, according to data from With Intelligence, with quant-focused funds posting average asset growth of 30% over the year

(Reporting by Shruti Agarwal in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)