Goldman Sachs Replaces Entire Trading Floor with Single Laptop Running Open-Source Model

NEW YORK — Goldman Sachs confirmed Tuesday that its equities trading division has been replaced by a single consumer laptop running an open-source AI model downloaded from a public repository. The laptop, a $1,200 mid-range device purchased from a retail electronics store, has outperformed the division's five-year average annual return by 34% in its first three months of operation. The 847 traders whose positions were eliminated received severance packages averaging $2.1 million.

The decision was made after a six-month internal trial in which the AI model — designated QUANT-7, though Goldman's IT team refers to it informally as 'the laptop' — was run in parallel with the human trading floor. In every metric the bank tracked, the laptop performed better. It made faster decisions, held positions with greater discipline, and did not, as one internal memo noted, 'require a lunch break, a bonus conversation, or a quiet room during earnings season.'

The open-source model Goldman is using was originally developed by a research collective and released publicly eighteen months ago. It has been downloaded 4.2 million times. Goldman's version has been fine-tuned on proprietary trading data, but the base model is available to anyone. Several of Goldman's competitors have already downloaded it. At least two hedge funds are running it on hardware less expensive than the Goldman laptop.

Financial regulators have opened a review of the arrangement, citing concerns about systemic risk if a significant portion of market activity is driven by the same underlying model. 'If everyone is running the same AI,' said one SEC official, 'we need to understand what happens when it's wrong in the same way at the same time.' Goldman said it was cooperating with the review and was confident in the model's risk management capabilities.

The laptop is kept in a climate-controlled server room on the 14th floor of Goldman's New York headquarters, plugged into a UPS battery backup and connected to the trading infrastructure via a dedicated fiber line. It is checked on twice daily by a single IT technician, whose primary responsibility is ensuring it remains plugged in. He described his job as 'the easiest and most unsettling thing I have ever done.' The laptop, as of Tuesday, had not made a losing trade.