Fortune - Bridgewater \$2 Billion Fund Machine Learning

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 Finance AI Bridgewater starts $2 billion fund that uses machine learning for decision-making and will include models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity

 By Sonali Basak Sonali Basak and Bloomberg Bloomberg Down Arrow Button Icon By Sonali Basak Sonali Basak and Bloomberg Bloomberg Down Arrow Button Icon July 1, 2024, 12:28 PM ET Add us on The new fund will be run by Greg Jensen, co-chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates. Stefan Wermuth—Bloomberg/Getty Images Bridgewater Associates is launching a fund that uses machine learning as the primary basis of its decision-making.

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 The vehicle will debut with almost $2 billion of capital from more than a half-dozen clients and begin trading Monday, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing the strategy. 

 The hedge fund giant, led by Chief Executive Officer Nir Bar Dea, told investors that it’s leaning on its own proprietary technology that it’s been building for more than a decade. It’s an outcome of a broader venture spearheaded by co-chief investment officer Greg Jensen, and the new fund will also broaden to include models developed by OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity, among others, the people said.

 

 The new fund will be run by Jensen. Westport, Connecticut-based Bridgewater has been testing the strategy since late last year with a small sleeve of its main Pure Alpha fund — about $100 million — to ensure the technology works, the people said. 

 Bridgewater declined to comment on the fund.

 Bar Dea, 42, has been transforming Bridgewater since founder Ray Dalio ceded control in late 2022. The fund launch is the latest step in a years-long transition that also included a major management overhaul. Meanwhile, the Pure Alpha fund has climbed 14.4% this year through June 26 after more than a decade of mostly lackluster returns, including a 7.6% loss in 2023, people familiar with the matter said. 

 Bridgewater’s assets under management are $108 billion.

 

 The push into machine learning is a “good manifestation of us taking the flag and putting it at the top of the mountain,” Bar Dea said in an interview, while declining to provide specifics about the new fund. “This is maybe the most significant and pure manifestation of the moment we’re in.”

 It also has the potential to change the hiring strategy and composition of staff at Bridgewater to include more data scientists, said Jensen, 49, who has been thinking about how machine learning could impact the hedge fund’s investing since 2012. 

 

 Jensen, who has worked at Bridgewater since 1996, said he then committed his own money toward OpenAI’s first funding round almost a decade ago, and years later he wrote one of the first checks for Anthropic.

 

 Statistician  Jasjeet Sekhon , 

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