RBC Capital Markets announced the launch of Aiden, an AI-based electronic trading platform that uses the computational power to get improved trading results and insights for clients.
In collaboration with RBC Capital Markets and Borealis AI, Aiden platform has been developed, a world-class AI research center created by RBC, as traders and AI scientists worked side-by-side to create the initial bold concept and deliver a real-world solution.
“Aiden speaks to our long-term commitment to leverage next-generation AI technology to create differentiated solutions for our clients,” Bobby Grubert, Co-Head of Global Equities, RBC Capital Markets, said. “Aiden is the result of a massive collaborative effort between RBC employees, including traders and AI scientists, and our partners at Borealis AI. Aiden is at the beginning of its journey and we see great potential to further expand its capabilities and redefine execution, while remaining true to its client-centric foundation.”
“After several years of comprehensive research, testing and fine-tuning, we are proud to bring a new standard of execution excellence to clients,” Dr. Foteini Agrafioti, Chief Science Officer at RBC and Head of Borealis AI, said. “Together, we are continuing our exploration of deep reinforcement learning, while advancing the development of responsible AI for our clients.”
Utilizing hundreds of pre-programmed data inputs and its ability to make more than 32 million calculations per order, the Aiden platform is able to execute trading decisions based on live market data, dynamically adjust to new information and learn from each of its previous actions.
“The market volatility we have seen during COVID-19 has been a great proving ground for Aiden,” Shary Mudassir, Co-Head of Global Equities Execution, RBC Capital Markets, said. “Aiden® was able to recognize the sudden changes in the market and adapt to them, allowing it to preserve performance. The Aiden® platform is part of our vision to be one of the best in the world at unlocking the potential of Artificial Intelligence and delivering those insights to our clients in an explainable way.”
The first live Aiden solution is designed to help improve clients’ trading performance by reducing slippage – the difference between the expected price of a trade and the price at which the trade is executed. The platform is currently available to RBC Capital Markets clients.
“The Aiden VWAP algorithm has demonstrated, under a standardized evaluation framework used to eliminate bias, the ability to significantly reduce slippage against market VWAP in the U.S. equity market,” Jas Sandhu, Head of Equities Algorithmic Trading, RBC Capital Markets, said. “There are plans to expand the Aiden application to RBC Capital Markets’ full suite of electronic trading algorithms.”
“Aiden continues our track record of working with our clients to better understand and address their key challenges and create value through innovation in a responsible and transparent way,” Grubert added. “Today’s Aiden announcement is just the first step in what we believe will be additional possibilities for how we can expand the application of artificial intelligence to trading intelligence for our clients.”
