Cloud and connectivity provider Beeks Financial Cloud Group has launched Market Edge Intelligence, an AI-driven analytics solution designed to deliver trading insights directly at the network edge, marking a significant strategic expansion from infrastructure into data intelligence.
The new solution aims to solve what the firm calls a “visibility gap” for trading participants. It uses AI and machine learning (ML) techniques to passively monitor capital markets data directly from network traffic in colocation facilities, providing real-time analytics on everything from infrastructure performance to potential trading signals.According to the company, this approach bypasses the delays inherent in traditional methods, where data subsets are moved to a central location for analysis.
“We felt there was a gap,” explains Matthew Cretney, Head of Product Management at Beeks Financial Cloud, in conversation with TradingTech Insight. “A lot of information at the edge is not included in those central analyses, perhaps because it is too much data to transport, there is too much noise, or the feedback loop is simply too long. The opportunity we saw was to shorten that feedback loop, provide greater visibility, and give these firms an edge by enabling a quicker reaction.”
Market Edge Intelligence is built to analyse raw data packets “from the wire,” applying AI to identify actionable patterns. The company states in a press release that this includes generating real-time insights such as “arbitrage signals and order flow irregularities,” which are often invisible to traditional feeds and databases.
Steve Rodgers, CTO at Beeks, elaborates on this capability. “We use data derived from the wire to provide intraday trading insights or signals,” he says. “While using Beeks Analytics for data capture isn’t new, what is new is that we are using that data stream as a pipeline to feed the machine learning models.”
The platform is designed to be flexible, ingesting data not only from live network traffic via the Beeks Analytics platform but also from clients’ third-party monitoring tools or even historical packet capture files. The output can be visualised in Grafana dashboards or consumed directly as a data feed, allowing firms to build a pipeline and integrate the signals into their own trading applications.
Power Users and Strategic Direction
While the solution is aimed at a broad audience including buy-side firms, brokers, and exchanges, Beeks identifies low-latency players as the primary initial adopters.
“Our first use cases focus on native multicast, or wireless market data,” says Cretney. “This naturally targets a specific segment of the capital markets audience: firms that operate at lower latencies and are willing to handle the overhead of dealing with native protocols.”
However, the firm also sees strong potential for exchanges focusing on capacity management and for market makers seeking to monitor for market anomalies that could impact their liquidity provision. “If you fall behind for any reason, it can impact your position. There is a lot of potential there for market makers,” Rodgers notes.
The launch signals a clear strategic push for Beeks, moving the company beyond its core infrastructure and connectivity offerings.
“We believe that providing analytics with the infrastructure is very important,” Cretney states. “We see the lack of visibility as one of the main reasons why the adoption of public cloud for trading services has been slower than anticipated. For us, providing that level of visibility is an important part of being an infrastructure provider.”
Implementation and Context
A key feature of the platform is its use of what Rodgers calls “exogenous data” to provide context for its analysis.
“As a starting point, we build market and economic calendars into the system, so it can determine if behaviour is normal for a specific context, such as the day before a trading holiday or during a Non-Farm Payroll announcement,” he explains. “The system can also incorporate other data sources, such as weather and radar data, to analyse the impact of atmospheric conditions on wireless market data feeds.”
Importantly, while the solution can be deployed on Beeks’ turnkey appliances, the company stresses that using its own infrastructure is not a prerequisite. Clients only need to provide a source of infrastructure data and can run the solution on simple virtual machines.
Built on an open architecture featuring native Kafka and QuestDB integration, Market Edge Intelligence represents a significant step by Beeks to equip firms with the tools to diagnose and optimise performance before issues arise, transforming raw network data into a source of competitive advantage.
Gordon McArthur, CEO at Beeks Group, comments: “The launch of Market Edge Intelligence is a major milestone for the industry and a great example of how Beeks is using AI to push boundaries and transform market infrastructure. Integrating AI directly into the trading infrastructure at the network edge is a significant innovation as it enables high volume data, such as market data to be analysed in real-time, which is ideal for capital markets. Market Edge Intelligence uses AI to revolutionise passive monitoring, enabling trading firms to monitor, diagnose and optimise performance before issues arise.”
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