Crédit Agricole CIB partners with Pasqal and Multiverse Computing

By Joy Dumasia

Crédit Agricole CIB with European tech Pasqal and Multiverse Computing announced a partnership to design and implement new approaches running on classical and quantum computers to outperform state of the art algorithms for capital markets and risk management.

International companies and institutions have started investing heavily in quantum technologies. Europe launched the Quantum Flagship Plan in October 2018, and France recently announced a €1.8 billion investment plan.

Quantum computing is likely to profoundly impact multiple industries in the coming years, including finance. Finance has been making substantial use of algorithms requiring advanced mathematics and statistics so far; it is the turn of quantum physics to help solve quantitative financial problems. In addition, quantum theory and technology, assembled in Quantum Computing, start demonstrating promising applications in capital markets and risk management.

Crédit Agricole CIB has teamed up with two quantum technology companies to apply quantum computing to real-world finance applications. French company Pasqal is developing a quantum computer based on neutral atoms arrays, currently being trialled to build industrial quantum computers. Spanish company Multiverse Computing specialises in quantum algorithms which can run both on quantum and classical computers.

Georges-Olivier Reymond, CEO of Pasqal, said: “I strongly believe in that partnership to foster the usage of quantum computing for Finance. To our knowledge, it is the first-ever in which all the stakeholders, software developer, hardware provider and end-user are working together on a problem. All the teams are very excited, and this development will be the cornerstone of future industrial applications for neutral atom quantum computers.”

Enrique Lizaso, CEO of Multiverse Computing, said: “We are thrilled with the opportunity of working together with Credit Agricole CIB and Pasqal in this ambitious project, that will put into production the most advanced tools currently only used in large non-financial institutions in US and China. This is a landmark project in Finance in the world.”