Back to News
The DeepMind trio who built a poker AI are now making money for quant hedge funds
BusinessTuesday, June 30, 2026 at 09:00 PM

The DeepMind trio who built a poker AI are now making money for quant hedge funds

Source: TechCrunch AI
Curated Summary

Three former DeepMind researchers have launched EquiLibre Technologies, a Prague-based AI lab valued at $500 million after securing a Series A led by Creandum.

The firm applies reinforcement learning, the same technique used to build DeepStack for poker, to algorithmic trading for quant hedge funds like Tower Research Capital.

EquiLibre's agents have maintained a perfect record of zero negative months since launching on crypto markets in 2025 and expanding to stock exchanges.

The company is explicitly defined as a lab rather than a finance firm, driven by the founders' excitement about building novel AI systems.

Creandum's vice president noted this was the largest single investment the firm has ever made in one company.

The founders were visiting PhD students at Google's now-shut-down Edmonton AI research office when they created their initial poker AI.

This deal highlights the continued high demand for frontier AI capabilities from DeepMind alumni in the financial sector.

Want the full story?

Read Original Article

via TechCrunch AI

#deepmind#reinforcement-learning#quant-finance#fundraising

Related Articles

OpenAI proposed donating 5% of its equity to a US sovereign wealth fund
TechCrunch AI
Business2d ago

OpenAI proposed donating 5% of its equity to a US sovereign wealth fund

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has proposed donating 5% of the company's equity to a U.S. sovereign wealth fund, a move reported by the Financial Times. This initiative aims to secure good relations with the administration and address potential political blowback regarding AI's rapid growth. The proposal aligns with recent discussions involving President Trump about the American public becoming a partner in AI companies. OpenAI has previously outlined similar concepts in a policy paper titled 'Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age,' suggesting returns could be distributed directly to citizens. While similar ideas have been proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders, including a 50% tax on AI stock, those legislative efforts have not yet advanced. The current OpenAI proposal remains preliminary and would likely require complex congressional approval to become reality. This development highlights the growing intersection between AI corporate strategy and national economic policy.

1 min readRead
Anthropic is discussing a new custom chip with Samsung
TechCrunch AI
Business2d ago

Anthropic is discussing a new custom chip with Samsung

Anthropic is reportedly in discussions with Samsung to develop a custom AI chip, signaling a serious move towards hardware independence. This potential partnership aims to diversify Anthropic's compute strategy beyond its current reliance on Google, Amazon, and Nvidia. The move comes amidst a broader industry trend where major AI firms seek to reduce dependency on Nvidia's dominant market position. Notably, this development follows OpenAI's recent announcement of its own custom inference processor, 'Jalapeño,' developed with Broadcom. While Anthropic has not yet disclosed specific technical details or use cases for the Samsung collaboration, the strategic alignment highlights the growing importance of specialized hardware. Samsung, already a key Nvidia partner, brings significant manufacturing capabilities to such high-stakes AI infrastructure projects. This shift underscores the competitive race among AI leaders to optimize performance and efficiency through proprietary silicon.

1 min readRead
Microsoft launches its own AI deployment company with $2.5 billion commitment
TechCrunch AI
Business2d ago

Microsoft launches its own AI deployment company with $2.5 billion commitment

Microsoft has launched a new operating business named Microsoft Frontier, dedicated to facilitating enterprise AI deployments. The initiative is backed by a substantial $2.5 billion investment and leverages 6,000 industry and engineering experts. Microsoft’s Commercial Business CEO Judson Althoff emphasizes that this venture exceeds traditional Forward Deployed Engineering models. This move positions Microsoft directly against competitors like AWS, which recently announced a similar $1 billion commitment. Early partnerships include major entities such as the London Stock Exchange Group, Unilever, and Accenture. The company aims to utilize its existing Fortune 500 client base to accelerate adoption of its AI tools. This strategic shift highlights the growing focus on practical implementation over mere model development.

1 min readRead