Victor Ayebameru Wins $100,000 Quant Championship as AI Nearly Doubles Entries to 156,000
Updated
Updated · Financial Times · Oct 7
Victor Ayebameru Wins $100,000 Quant Championship as AI Nearly Doubles Entries to 156,000
2 articles · Updated · Financial Times · Oct 7
Summary
Victor Ayebameru of Nigeria won the International Quant Championship in Singapore after finalists spent four hours building algorithms to solve a maths problem and then presented their results to judges.
156,000-plus students from 13 countries entered this year—almost double 2025—as organisers said freely available AI tools widened access and let more candidates compete.
Solo entries jumped by more than 75,000 while teams rose by only 1,000, reflecting how AI now lets individuals do work that previously required research groups.
Africa supplied 28% of applicants, up from 4% in 2023, and women made up 26%, up from 18% last year, underscoring AI's role in lowering technical barriers.
Students at the event also said the same AI tools are making hiring tougher, with some hedge fund managers seen cutting junior roles even as the sector undergoes rapid change.
Are global quant competitions democratizing finance, or simply crowdsourcing the world's best trading algorithms for Wall Street at a massive discount?
With hedge funds using AI to replace junior coders, what hidden skills are top firms actually demanding from new hires today?
If AI lets anyone build complex trading algorithms in minutes, how long until identical strategies trigger a massive market collapse?