AI drives surge in WorldQuant's university quant contest participation

By Summer Zhen HONG KONG (Reuters) -Hedge fund WorldQuant said its flagship quantitative competition attracted a record number of entrants this year, as wider use of artificial intelligence lowered barriers for university students to develop quantitative trading models. WorldQuant selected four winners last week, from a record 80,000 university participants, doubling the size from last year. The rise of AI has made it easier for students from different backgrounds to develop trading algorithms, boosting participation in quant contests that are fast becoming key talent pipelines for some of the world's largest hedge funds. "The interesting difference this year from previous years was there were a lot of teams had only one person," Igor Tulchinsky, founder and chairman of WorldQuant, which manages over $7 billion in assets, told Reuters. "And I think a lot of people are using AI and language models to help them." Tulchinsky noted some teams this year have been able to read documents, evaluate ideas, and run simulations in a fully automated way by using AI agents. Organised by WorldQuant, one of the world's largest quant funds and a spin-off of Millennium Management, the International Quant Championship (IQC) tests who can best use mathematical models to predict the future price movements of various financial instruments. MinKyeom Kim from the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea claimed the top spot, according to WorldQuant. The rest of the winners are from India, Kenya and Taiwan. Quant hedge funds managing over $1 billion saw their overall assets increase by $44 billion in the first half of 2025, With Intelligence data shows, driven by strong returns and inflows. Tulchinsky, the Belarusian-born U.S. hedge fund billionaire, said WorldQuant is focusing on developing agentic systems – autonomous AI systems that can independently analyze markets and make investment decisions. The firm has a goal of having one million AI agents in the next few years. (Reporting by Summer Zhen; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)

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