AQR Bets on Machine Learning as Asness Becomes AI Believer

Cliff AsnessPhotographer: Joe Buglewicz/Bloomberg
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Cliff Asness, Wall Street’s standard bearer of traditional quant finance, was once skeptical that machine learning would ever make a big splash at AQR Capital Management.

Yet seven years after the AQR co-founder issued his wordsBloomberg Terminal of caution on the technology’s potential, it’s a very different story. The firm is raising external capital for two machine-learning strategies, and this subset of artificial intelligence now powers about a fifth of the trading signals in its flagship multi-strategy fund.