In algorithmic trading, time isn't just money—time is the entire game. Being a millisecond late means missing the order book entirely. Today, we're taking you inside our infrastructure setup at Equinix LD4 in Slough, the beating heart of the London forex market.
What is Co-Location?
For those unfamiliar, co-location means placing our trading servers in the exact same physical data centre as the matching engines of liquidity providers and exchanges. Because data travels at the speed of light, physical distance equals latency. By sitting right next to the exchange servers, we cut out the internet entirely.
Moving from CPUs to FPGAs
A few years ago, we realized that standard server CPUs (Central Processing Units) were becoming our bottleneck. The operating system, the networking stack, the memory management—it all added microseconds to our trade execution.
Our solution was a multi-million-pound investment in Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). We effectively "hardwired" our core trading algorithms directly into silicon chips. Our network cards now process incoming FIX protocol messages directly in hardware, completely bypassing the server's CPU and operating system.
Sub-50 Microsecond Execution
The result? When our AI models trigger a buy or sell signal, the order is generated, risk-checked, and transmitted to the exchange in under 50 microseconds. For context, a blink of an eye takes about 300,000 microseconds.
This infrastructure ensures that ABD Group's clients get the absolute best fills, virtually eliminating negative slippage in normal market conditions.
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