QuanTech is another new term that we will have to live with but it is a powerful concept. It is an emerging area that combines quant (or analytics) with technology - offering an integrated approach to modelling, modern data engineering practices and cloud computing. Its aim is to first disrupt, second modernize and then streamline the delivery of quant/analytics services in a firm – saving time and cost and avoiding unnecessary hassle. QuanTech is a cousin of FinTech, RegTech, and DataOps.
At its core QuanTech brings model lifecycle and its technology implementation into a consolidated agile process and adds automation at every layer to build, validate, test, deploy, and productionize models. This is in contrast to traditional approaches where the processes are sequential and rigid, teams operate within fixed boundaries and projects take a long time to fruition.
A few practical benefits and examples follow:
QuanTech and QuantOps make the modelling process iterative, fast and easy to operationalize in production.
QuanTech encourages the use of practices like CI/CD which provide automation in model development, validation and implementation.
Automated testing is an integral part of quantech that helps in continuously assessing and assuring the validity of models with known datasets.
Use of DevOps practices creates a common infrastructure so that model development and validation take place in an environment that is as close to production as possible.
In this 7-part series (see below), we explore key pillars of quantech framework, common pitfalls and best practices for new teams and companies adopting this approach.
Part 1: Demystifying QuanTech (this blog)
Part 2: Further examples and benefits of QuanTech
Part 3: Modern data architecture and tools
Part 4: Managing data quality through the model lifecycle
Part 5: Automating model development and testing
Part 6: DataOps for beginner quants
Part 7: Bringing it all together for successful project outcomes.
About us
Basinghall Analytics is a hybrid consulting and technology firm based out of London, United Kingdom. Its domain expertise includes risk, finance and treasury. Its mission is to enable clients to focus on business and risk decisions, rather than on process and infrastructure, by delivering streamlined and integrated analytics and technology. SquareShift.co is a specialist cloud computing and cyber security firm based out of Singapore. Its mission is to help its clients harness the power of their data.
