Nasdaq and Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company, announced an advancement in their shared mission to modernize markets globally. Drawing on their deep experience and expertise in powering capital markets, the companies are introducing a new suite of solutions that empower market operators to enhance liquidity, facilitate capital flows, and drive growth, while upholding the highest level of performance, security and resilience.
Today, market operators navigate unique complexities, including emerging technology acceleration, highly competitive environments, regulatory standards, and constantly evolving client needs. Yet, their ability to innovate and modernize at pace requires ever greater expertise and advanced technological capabilities. To address these challenges, Nasdaq and AWS are delivering infrastructure, software, data management and services to enable market operators to overcome modernization barriers cost effectively without compromising resiliency or control.
The new blueprint, proven through Nasdaq’s successful market modernization with AWS, drives industry standards, dynamic and sustainable operations while promoting a more resilient financial ecosystem. In the long term, the blueprint can enhance investor confidence and connect capital, previously confined locally due to technological complexity, to global investment opportunities.
“Local economies flourish when capital markets are robust, and global investors can confidently channel capital across borders. Conversely, a strong global economy is reliant on local markets that are highly dynamic, where innovators can scale, and capital can seamlessly connect. Powering both creates a virtuous cycle of value creation, driving economic growth and wealth generation,” said Adena Friedman, Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Nasdaq. “The unique combination of Nasdaq’s technology expertise and AWS’s advanced infrastructure enables us to solve the industry’s most complex challenges that have hampered the growth and scalability of markets around the world. By reducing complicatedness, friction, and fragmentation we are fortifying the financial system with greater connectivity and resilience and enabling a new era of economic growth and prosperity.”
“Building on our 15-year partnership, Nasdaq and AWS are furthering our shared vision to develop technology that simplifies and streamlines capital markets,” said Matt Garman, CEO at AWS. “Together, we are helping market operators provide seamless connectivity for markets and investors anywhere in the world, with a blueprint for modernization and innovation, and the ability to unlock new opportunities for innovation and growth in capital markets.”
A blueprint for the next generation of markets with resilience and optionality
The blueprint empowers market operators to execute their modernization strategies by optimizing their resource investments while focusing on operational excellence, enhancing competitive differentiation, satisfying their regulatory obligations, and driving innovation within their markets. The first three key components of the blueprint include:
- Bringing together AWS, exchange, and trading participant infrastructure in close proximity to power global capital markets: Building on AWS’s high-performing, scalable infrastructure, as well as its deep expertise in operating cloud infrastructure, Nasdaq and AWS are offering a new solution for market operators that addresses resilience, security, proximity and latency demands by positioning AWS services, exchange and trading participant systems in a common location. For the first time, global market participants will have access to industry-leading compute services from AWS in close proximity to the core exchange complex and their own co-located trading systems. In addition, AWS will provide connectivity between this infrastructure and AWS’s Global Regions via the AWS Direct Connect service and the AWS global network, to provide low-latency, high bandwidth connectivity for global applications; all while enabling operators to retain overall control of their data.
- Nasdaq Eqlipse, a next generation marketplace technology platform: Nasdaq Eqlipse seamlessly integrates client community feedback and Nasdaq’s development investments, including platform capabilities, application architecture, APIs and product integration. The solutions feature cloud-ready applications and globally standardized APIs with proven interoperability across the full trade lifecycle. Nasdaq’s marketplace technology solutions are already used by over 135 market infrastructure providers around the world for multi-asset trading, clearing, central securities depository and surveillance. Nasdaq Eqlipse will also include a new solution – Nasdaq Eqlipse Intelligence – designed to unlock the full potential of market operators’ data with modern, cloud-based data management, analytics and reporting capabilities that are specific to market operators’ workflows. These capabilities address the industry-wide opportunity to deploy AI at greater scale, recognizing its potential to transform how marketplaces operate.
A services deployment model: The modernization blueprint brings together the expertise and experience of Nasdaq and AWS through a new services deployment model. This provides market operators with access to both companies’ deep capital markets expertise to help reduce operational heavy lifting. Ultimately the services deployment model powered by AWS is designed to help market operators reduce transformation risks, allowing them to focus technology resources toward a growth-driven capital allocation strategy. Market operators will be able to augment and accelerate their path to modernization, while improving time-to-market for new releases and enhancing overall resilience.
The blueprint delivers key benefits to market operators so that they can drive innovation; specifically:
Provide greater flexibility for both innovation and monetization for market operators by leveraging modern technology infrastructure to capitalize on the potential of AI, enhance their data and insight-based services, and develop new products and functionality to the benefit of all market participants.
Promote transparency, enhance liquidity and protect market integrity by strengthening trading, clearing, and settlement operations and reducing barriers for local, regional and global investors with secure access.
The blueprint plans to use AWS’s global network and low-latency traffic routing to support frictionless, high-speed connections for markets and investors around the world. This connectivity will allow market participants to interact seamlessly and transparently across global exchanges with minimal latency, fostering globally inter-connected markets built on a common data lake architecture.
Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Grupo BMV and Nasdaq’s Nordic markets modernize their ecosystems
Nasdaq has expanded its modernization partnership with both Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and Mexico’s Grupo BMV. Additionally, Nasdaq’s Nordic markets have today announced their intention to modernize their infrastructure in line with the blueprint.
The JSE is collaborating with Nasdaq around the development of services for colocation, data intelligence and insights, and client interactions. The blueprint service deployment model will support the South African bourse’s technology enablement journey to modernize its technology, leverage edge computing infrastructure, explore AI to deliver innovative market solutions and drive operational efficiencies.
Leila Fourie, Group CEO of the JSE said: “This strategic collaboration is an extension of the long-standing relationship the JSE has with Nasdaq. The market infrastructure developed in partnership with Nasdaq and AWS will open the door to greater global market interconnectivity with minimal latency, which will support increased liquidity and capital flows between the US and South African capital markets. We will be setting new standards for the industry through innovation and technology that creates value for market participants.”
Building on the market modernization efforts with Nasdaq, Grupo BMV is analyzing how it can build on its existing technology partnership across its clearing and central securities depository platforms by leveraging the services deployment model. They are also evaluating the long-term potential for cloud infrastructure in Mexico and its ability to create a robust, high-integrity ecosystem that reduces barriers to market participation, enhances operational efficiency, and accelerates the adoption of emerging technologies across the Mexican financial landscape.
Jorge Alegría, Chief Executive Officer, Grupo BMV, said: “Our post-trade technology infrastructure is undergoing a transformative evolution, with Nasdaq playing a pivotal role as our enabling partner, as we look toward the next decade. We are committed to driving innovation, enhancing operational efficiency and proactively addressing the evolving needs of our local and international customers.”
In line with the blueprint, Nasdaq plans to incorporate the managed infrastructure model within its Nordic markets. Starting with the Nordic derivatives market, Nasdaq will be able to provide additional services to clients, powered by AWS infrastructure which allows Nasdaq’s clients to rapidly scale their GPU usage within Nasdaq’s own data center in Väsby, Sweden and harness cloud services to innovate faster.
Roland Chai, President of European Market Services, Nasdaq, said: “The success of Nasdaq’s Nordic markets has demonstrated the extraordinary power of modern market infrastructure to attract international sources of capital. Incorporating AWS’s advanced cloud infrastructure is expected to elevate our markets on the global stage and help to power the next generation of growth across Europe.”
These advancements will be made in close consultation with the respective regulatory authorities and are subject to relevant approvals.
About Nasdaq
