Qube Research & Technologies

What do a Mario Kart-style racing game, an AI-powered birdwatching companion and a smart food waste app have in common? They were all projects that caught our attention in this year's Raspberry Pi Coolest Projects Showcase. This marks our sixth year supporting this initiative - our biggest yet: almost 100 QRT volunteers signed up to review some of the 4,500 digital projects submitted by young innovators around the world. The entries were creative, clever, and entertaining, making us think, laugh and press play again. Thanks to our QRT judges, for their time and help to encourage the next generation of creators through initiatives like Coolest Projects.

What happens when 800 students take on QRT-style challenges? Since last October, we've been finding out through MathQ and C3 - our maths and computer science competitions. Recently, we had the pleasure of hosting the grand finals, bringing together 50 finalists from Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London and UCL. The finalists tackled a series of advanced mathematical, algorithmic and agentic challenges, putting their analytical thinking, creativity and problem-solving skills to the test. Beyond the competition itself, the event was a great opportunity for students to meet our teams, learn more about life at QRT across Data, Research, Trading and Technology, and exchange ideas with the people applying these concepts every day. Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to everyone who took part and helped make these happen. We’re already looking forward to the next round this autumn.

Running is one of the most popular activities across QRT’s communities globally, bringing us together well beyond the workplace. That is why, on Global Running Day this week, we were particularly delighted to welcome Martin Fourcade to QRT for a discussion with our teams. A former French biathlete, Martin is the most decorated French Olympian in history across both the Summer and Winter Games, with 6 Olympic gold medals and 13 World Championship titles. Having remained world number one in biathlon for seven consecutive seasons, his journey offers a remarkable perspective on discipline, continuous improvement, the ability to perform consistently over time, navigating both successes and setbacks, and the importance of teamwork behind what may appear to be an individual performance — themes that resonate strongly with us. A big thank you to Martin for sharing his experience and insights with us so openly and with such humility. It was a memorable discussion and a source of inspiration for many of us.

Games nights have become a regular fixture at QRT globally, from chess to mahjong, Rummikub to strategy board games… and the occasional heated debate over Uno rules. Each office brings its own flavour- Hong Kong mixes Rummikub with Chinese Chess, London sparks friendly competition over Terraforming Mars and Catan while Mumbai recently had the privilege of hosting Grandmaster Koneru Humpy for a chess simul and fireside chat, offering a closer look at the thought process, pressure and decision-making behind the game at the highest level. Games challenge us to think differently, collaborate and solve problems together, and we genuinely enjoy it! 🎲

Three days, five offices, countless technical discussions — our Dubai, Wroclaw, London, Zurich and Paris teams recently came together for our EMEA Tech Camp. The sessions covered the full breadth of what it takes to build and run a quantitative investment team at scale. And because the best discussions do not always happen in meeting rooms, we also took time to continue the conversations over midweek drinks at our London office. A big thank you to all the speakers and attendees who made the event such a success. And for those who couldn’t join us this time, we look forward to seeing you at the next one!

Where does academic research meet real life quantitative finance? That intersection was on full display during a recent workshop of the "Deep Finance and Statistics" research initiative hosted with École Polytechnique at our Paris office. These gatherings are always a valuable opportunity to share expertise, explore new research perspectives on topics such as market simulation, trading algorithms, generative AI, and risk management, and collaborate with faculty and researchers from the Centre for Applied Mathematics at École Polytechnique alongside QRT's research teams. Over the past six years, we've built a lasting partnership with École Polytechnique and its foundation, Fondation de l'École polytechnique. Beyond the Deep Finance & Statistics initiative — which focuses on the systematic management of financial risks in trading algorithms — QRT also supports two Master's programmes in Data Science and AI for Finance, and provides bursaries to international students. A heartfelt thank you to the teams at Polytechnique Charles-Albert Lehalle, Stefano De Marco, Marie Caillat and Cristina Gastineau, for these stimulating exchanges and their invaluable support in building this partnership. A collaboration that will continue to develop, enabling joint progress on major scientific challenges.

Introducing the QRT Travel Grants - now open to Master's, PhD, and Postdoctoral researchers! As we believe that great ideas grow stronger when shared, we're finding ways to bring together leading researchers and technologists to exchange insights, showcase their work, and build meaningful connections across the global research community. Our new Travel Grants are designed to: 🔹 Support academic and professional development 🔹 Encourage engagement with the global research community 🔹 Provide access to cutting-edge ideas and discussions We were thrilled to meet our very first grant recipients at ICLR 2026 in Rio de Janeiro - an inspiring start to this new initiative! It was the perfect occasion to reflect on the continued dominance of LLMs and reinforcement learning, alongside exciting work in interpretability, graph neural networks, reasoning, and optimisation. Investing in the next generation of leaders in data science and technology is at the heart of what we do, and we look forward to continuing these conversations at ICML Seoul and CppCon Colorado.

Last week, we wrapped up another edition of our Quant Research Induction Week: welcoming our new joiners from Amsterdam, Aarhus, Wroclaw, Budapest, Paris, London, Geneva, Zurich and Dubai. It was five intense days of learning, practical, hands-on sessions, collaboration and connection. Everyone came together midweek to a beautiful spot in London for tapas, networking and caricature portraits… something to remember the evening by. We are extremely excited to welcome this new cohort to QRT and are already looking ahead to welcome the next one!

We marked Earth Day for the fourth year running, with colleagues around the world walking or running for trees (1km = 1 tree) reaching 2,887 in 24 hours. We also cleaned beaches, gardened and planted trees. From local initiatives to structural commitments, our sustainability journey is progressing worldwide🌱

This week, we sponsored and attended the European Girls' Mathematical Olympiad (EGMO) for the first time. With participants from over fifty countries, EGMO brings together talented high school students from around the world to tackle complex mathematical problems over two days. It was a great opportunity to engage with the students, discuss the many paths into STEM, and celebrate the talent in the room. We were also proud that one of our colleagues was part of the leadership of one of the competing teams.  Our involvement continued the following day at the QRT office, where we had the pleasure of hosting the African Olympiad Academy team - celebrating their first ever participation in the competition. Events like EGMO closely align with our philanthropic mission to make mathematics and science more accessible - especially for underrepresented communities, and to help foster the next generation of talent. #EGMO2026