China’s quantitative hedge funds are ramping up US recruitment efforts, targeting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students disrupted by President Donald Trump’s student visa restrictions and university funding cuts, according to a report by Bloomberg.
Mingshi Investment Management, a Shanghai-based quant manager overseeing RMB15bn, has launched a special hiring programme for Chinese students in the US whose PhD plans were derailed. The initiative includes full-time roles and internships, particularly for graduates from Chinese universities unable to pursue overseas study.
AI-focused Shanghai Goku Technologies and other billion-yuan quants are also aggressively courting displaced talent, with one $1.4bn fund hiring three AI researchers from US institutions this year alone.
The recruitment drive comes amid tightening US visa scrutiny, particularly for Chinese and Hong Kong nationals, following Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s May announcement of “aggressive” revocations. Quant hedge funds in China view this geopolitical friction as a strategic opening in the ongoing global quant talent war.
Salaries are rising accordingly. At one eastern China-based fund, some returning researchers now earn more than 10 million yuan annually, with over 40% of its research team drawn from overseas programmes, largely in the US.
Firms like QuantPi Investment, led by ex-Two Sigma market-maker Sun Lin, are also benefiting from a growing sense of cultural affinity and opportunity among Chinese students in the West. Sun noted that “the more ambitious and self-confident candidates tend to opt for domestic firms like QuantPi,” which continue to prioritise global academic pedigrees in recruitment.
The hiring boom comes as China’s quant sector eyes international expansion. Goku, for example, secured a Singapore license to onboard offshore capital, while Mingshi recently hosted Yale students at its Shanghai office in a bid to boost international visibility.
With China poised to produce 77,000 STEM PhDs annually by 2025 – nearly double the US output when excluding international students – firms are also accelerating their push into AI-driven strategies, with some like Goku now deriving over 95% of trading signals from machine learning models.
