Commentary

A Picture Worth A Thousand Quants

I usually poke fun at pitches that include phrases like "first-of-its-kind" or "world-class" or "cutting-edge," but this one might actually be worthy of such high praise.

The University of Waterloo has unveiled a new technology laboratory that will be located at its Institute for Quantum Computing. It will open this Thursday.

The purpose of the lab is to create quantum materials for the next generation of computer processing. There is a $5 million "tool" in the lab that will "grow new materials that could form the building blocks of quantum technologies." I put tool in quotations because once you see the picture below you'll realize it's much more impressive than your typical hammer.

Per the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, quantum is "the smallest amount of many forms of energy." In the scope of programmatic trading on exchanges, that's equivalent to the popular terms "efficiency" and "optimization."

David Cory, Canada Excellence Research chair and deputy director, research at the Institute for Quantum Computing, stated, "New materials are not conventional, so we need to take an unconventional approach to this research."

The tie-in to real-time media is not obvious, but it doesn't take much imagination to see how this lab or others like it could change the game in a few years. After all, "dark fiber" -- which is the plumbing of ad technology and the fuel behind all the speed -- makes a world of difference in a real-time bidding (RTB) environment.

There's also the process of quantitative analysis, which is what those fancy algorithms that buy and sell media are doing in real-time. Actually, real-time is more like 0.36 seconds, and we know buyers, sellers, and tech providers are all working to make it faster. But in order to do so, the quantitative analysis -- or data processing -- needs to be faster. If programmatic trading is to keep growing at its current pace, this type of lab is exactly what it needs.  

The Government of Canada, Canada Foundation from Innovation, and the Ontario Research Fund are the named funders of the lab.

The real story, though, is in the picture. It speaks for itself and gives us non-lab geeks a look inside what could very well be creating the technology of tomorrow. Just don't press the wrong button.

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