The Billionaire Hedge Fund Manager With Quantum Ambitions

Every morning at 11:30, hedge fund manager Michael Hintze rallies his troops at the office of CQS in London. Portfolio managers and analysts stand at a podium to offer their assessment of whether they’ll make or lose money because of unfolding global events. Traders in New York and Hong Kong are linked up, and the meeting is broadcast around the firm. More serious matters are handled behind the podium, in CQS’s “situation room.” The walls here are crowded with charts, and screens display anything from a real-time cyberattack unfolding somewhere in the world to Gulf shipping to various Twitter feeds. Another wall has TV channels featuring Al Jazeera, China’s CCTV, and other networks.

In an age of quantitative investing, where billions of dollars are run by black-box algorithms making split-second trades, Hintze’s approach seems almost old-fashioned. So it was a surprise when an interview with him and his lieutenant, Xavier Rolet, the former CEO of London Stock Exchange, turned to quantum computing.