Exegy has launched Nexus, a new market data platform designed to streamline infrastructure for high-volume, low-latency trading environments. The FPGA-based system replaces traditional, server-heavy feed handlers with a combination of managed appliances and network interface cards that deliver microsecond-level performance and reduce datacentre footprint by over 40%.
“Across the buy side and sell side, market data has traditionally been processed using two common approaches: ticker plants that centralise processing and distribute data across servers, and embedded software libraries that run alongside applications on the same server,” observes Laurent de Barry, VP, Ultra-Low Latency Trading Products at Exegy, in conversation with TradingTech Insight. “Both methods come with significant drawbacks, i.e. higher latency, limited scalability, or high CPU consumption. Neither is well suited to today’s environment of record-breaking data volumes and constrained data centre capacity.”
De Barry explains how Nexus takes a different approach. “What’s unique about Nexus is that it rethinks the entire architecture. We’ve separated the workload: feed processing is handled centrally by FPGA-enabled appliances that publish raw market data without merging feeds. On the client side, a Nexus SmartNIC, also FPGA-enabled, subscribes to those feeds and performs aggregation, conflation, and shaping based on the application’s needs. This creates a full end-to-end FPGA and Layer 1 data path, enabling extremely low latency with minimal jitter. We’ve also implemented a new PCIe shared memory interface that allows the FPGA to push data directly into application memory structures, without polling. This means the application server needs only one CPU core for market data tasks. The rest is available for trading logic.”
Exegy reports that Nexus has delivered notable cost savings in early deployments. A U.S. equities broker saw server count fall from 32 to 22, saving $1.4 million annually per site. Further reductions were achieved when paired with Nexus SmartNICs, dropping the server count to 17 and delivering close to $2 million in yearly savings.
Initial use cases have focused on equities and futures trading, but the company plans to expand support to other asset classes and features, including advanced order handling for agency brokers. Nexus integrates with Exegy’s execution solutions – SREX and nxAccess – providing a single platform for market data normalisation, distribution, and tick-to-trade execution.
“With Nexus, we’re not just accelerating market data; we’re aligning it with what applications actually need to do, especially in latency-sensitive environments,” says de Barry. “For example, a pricing model may only need top-of-book data, while a Smart Order Router (SOR) requires full depth. The application controls how the data is consumed, and the SmartNIC ensures it’s delivered efficiently, eliminating bottlenecks. And because Nexus integrates with Exegy’s broader FPGA tick-to-trade stack, it supports everything from normalised market data delivery to ultra-low-latency execution across multiple venues. For both sell-side and buy-side firms, it offers a scalable way to reduce infrastructure complexity and deploy high-performance trading systems more efficiently.”
Beyond performance improvements, Nexus is intended to simplify the deployment of large-scale FPGA environments by delivering raw and normalised market data directly to FPGAs. This supports ultra-fast order routing to exchanges and remote locations via wireless networks.
“What makes Nexus possible is the combination of FPGA technology from Exegy and Enyx, and the software feed handler expertise from Vela and Exegy,” note de Barry. “The ability to support both hardware and software feed handlers is essential, because not every market justifies FPGA-level latency. We can start clients with a software-based solution, and if a venue becomes latency-sensitive for their strategy, they can seamlessly upgrade to an FPGA-based handler without changing their API or control interface. This dual approach also improves system resilience. For example, running an FPGA-based primary with a software-based secondary significantly reduces the likelihood of shared faults, increasing reliability by design. Finally, we bring nearly two decades of experience operating production systems. That informs how we deliver Nexus as a managed service, covering everything from remote monitoring and version upgrades to supporting integration. The feed handler appliance is fully managed by Exegy, while the SmartNIC runs on the client’s server. Although we typically don’t have direct access to those client environments, we’ve focused on providing the right tools to ensure the SmartNIC doesn’t feel like a black box. Instead, it becomes a transparent, controllable part of their trading infrastructure.”
Nexus is now available for order, with production delivery expected in Q4 2025. Early adopters have access to a pre-production integration environment. The platform is offered as a managed service, including deployment, monitoring and ongoing support.
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