S15 - Finance Applications

Pricing options on multiple underlying assets is a central problem in quantitative finance, with broad relevance for risk management, structured products, and trading of multi-asset exotics. In high dimensions, classical valuation workflows (spanning construction of risk-neutral distributions, consistent interpolation/extrapolation of market surfaces, and numerical integration of complex payoffs) face significant computational and modelling challenges. A central requirement is the recovery of arbitrage-free marginal risk-neutral densities from observed vanilla options and their implied volatilities, together with a tractable and realistic representation of inter-asset dependence to obtain joint distributions suitable for pricing basket, spread, worst-of, and other path-independent multivariate payoffs. In this context, traditional approaches rely heavily on simplistic stochastic models and numerical techniques such as classical Monte Carlo (CMC) simulation, which, while robust, often suffer from lack of representativeness and high computational costs when extended to high-dimensional settings.

In our work, we solved financial network problems. A financial network is defined as a network composed of asset holdings and cross-holdings among institutions, such as countries and companies. The financial network problem aims to determine the equilibrium state of such a system under nonlinear interactions, including defaults [1]. Since solving this problem enables the prediction of loss propagation associated with defaults of institutions, it is expected to simulate financial crises, which are often triggered by defaults, as seen in 2008. However, the financial network problem is known to be an NP-hard problem [2], and the computational complexity increases exponentially depending on the problem size. 

This presentation is an introductory intellectual property (IP) and patenting guide for researchers and professionals working in quantum computing and quantum algorithms.


It explains the growing global patent landscape in quantum software, noting that patent activity. We will see how the volume of patents in different areas has increased, which countries are patenting, where they are patenting and the existing gap in European quantum patents. 


Onced analysed the trend in patents related to quantum computing, we will focus on the main concepts of patents. What is a patent, how long it last, what to keep in mind, what can be patented etc. A principal focus is whether quantum algorithms can be patented. While abstract mathematics, scientific theories and software as such are generally excluded from patent protection, an algorithm may be patentable if it solves a technical problem. 


The presentation also introduces the main patentability requirements: novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability. Its most important practical message for a scientific-conference audience is to avoid publicly disclosing a potentially valuable invention—through a paper, talk, poster or other publication—before discussing it with an IP professional and, where appropriate, filing a patent application.


We finish the talk with key guidelines on why patenting as a researcher is valuable and few key take-aways for the audience to remember. 


We will ensure there is enough time for final questions!