JP Morgan goes live with Maxeler supercomputer

Supercomputer uses FPGA chips to perform complex calculations at high speed

Investment bank JP Morgan has deployed high performance computer provider Maxeler's dataflow supercomputer to manage the bank's fixed income trading operations.

The analysis and profiling of intra-day trading risk within JP Morgan will run on a Maxeler dataflow supercomputer using field programmable gate array (FPGA) chips that enable the supercomputer to perform difficult calculations quickly, including complex trading strategies or risk evaluations.

According to Maxeler, complex scenarios for JP Morgan can now be calculated in a few minutes rather than hours.

The supercomputer will allow the investment bank to consider thousands of potential market scenarios, constantly assessing the time path and structure of the risks associated.

"With the new Maxeler technology, JP Morgan's trading businesses can now compute orders of magnitude more quickly, making it possible to improve our understanding and control of the profile of our complex trading risk," said head of markets strategies at JP Morgan, Peter Cherasia.

Other parts of JP Morgan's fixed income business will have access to a second supercomputer that has been ordered as part of the deal.