Qube Research & Technologies (QRT), the $30bn quant-driven multi-strategy hedge fund, is preparing to open its first US office in Houston, marking a major geographic expansion as it targets the booming commodities space, according to a report by Bloomberg.

The report cites unnamed people familiar with the matter as revealing that the London-headquartered hedge fund has tapped Naveen Arora, formerly co-head of US power trading at Goldman Sachs, to help spearhead the new Houston operation. The move will initially focus on commodities trading, with plans to eventually expand into physical markets, reflecting a broader hedge fund push into energy and power trading.

While QRT has long traded US assets remotely from offices across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, the US footprint had remained absent – until now. The firm declined to comment, and Goldman Sachs also did not respond.

The move into Houston comes amid a commodities renaissance for hedge funds, with power and natural gas markets producing record profits in recent years thanks to price volatility, infrastructure dislocations, and climate-driven demand spikes. The rising energy appetite of AI data centres is only intensifying interest.

QRT joins a growing list of multi-strats, including Citadel, Balyasny Asset Management, and Millennium, that are expanding into physical gas and power markets. In Europe, QRT has already become a top-tier participant in physical gas contracts, rivalling large corporate players.

Qube’s rapid ascent from its 2018 spinout of Credit Suisse – with just $800m in capital – to a $30bn hedge fund has been driven by its quantitative trading expertise and aggressive strategy diversification. It now manages multiple vehicles, including its Torus and Prism funds, and allocates capital to external managers.

Led by former Credit Suisse executives Pierre-Yves Morlat and Laurent Laizet, QRT has grown to over 1,400 employees, running strategies across market making, catastrophe bonds, venture capital, and physical commodities.