Big Data’s Big Rise

In September 2015, CIO’s resident skeptic and futurist Angelo Calvello suggested that investors’ inability to achieve their objectives could be a big data problem. “From my perspective, the cause is the self-limiting nature of the parameters of how we, as in an industry, invest,” he wrote.

Calvello isn’t the only one who sought out large-scale and nontraditional datasets as an answer. Google Trends reveals web searches for ‘big data’ in finance rose significantly beginning in 2012. Some of the most prominent hedge funds are also building up their big data and artificial intelligence arsenals, including Bridgewater Associates, Two Sigma, Renaissance Technologies, and Point72 (a family office, officially). As the columnist asked, “Isn’t the much sought-after unicorn in our industry—alpha—the result of having superior information and superior processes?”