FundsTech 2026: Investors should prepare for the quantum computing wave - Funds Europe

A FundsTech 2026 interview today explored the reality of quantum adoption across the investment management value chain. Ross Grassie, global strategy & operations manager at tech firm JIJ Europe, a co-author of the Financial Conduct Authority’s ( FCA) research note, Quantum Computing Applications in Financial Services, said that firms and regulators must prepare for a new wave of technology promising to act as an accelerator, despite its current experimental stage. Quantum computing remains a distant wave compared to the visible AI boom because both the hardware and software used are still experimental, said Grassie. Current quantum computers are “a trillion times more error prone than your laptop,” and still face questions regarding verification and programming languages. The question for the industry is: What are the specific tasks that quantum computing will do “much better” than classical infrastructure? Potential use cases for asset managers include portfolio and asset trading optimisation, risk modelling, anti-money laundering and more. Grassie noted that in fraud detection, Quantum is already proving useful by “throwing up cases that you maybe wouldn’t have seen before”. The UK is globally competitive, said Grassie, with the second-highest number of quantum startups outside the US. “The FCA has hired their first quantum researcher looking at their daily operations and trying to figure out how to apply quantum computing in the finance industry,” he shared. Quantum computing presents a national growth opportunity for UK financial services, but realising it requires coordinated effort and a shift in focus to the full quantum stack, including software and algorithms, for commercial viability, according to the research. Financial firms are adopting readiness strategies that blend use-case and technology-first approaches, primarily targeting optimisation, machine learning and stochastic modelling using hybrid methods. Near-term regulations are unlikely, as existing regulatory themes will apply, but the FCA encourages firms to prioritise “low regret” actions like skills development and has proposed a new Applications Regulatory Readiness Framework to support proportionate innovation.