From Singapore to Ulaanbaatar: building quantum-inspired trading systems and a new HPC hub for Asia.
Subscribe: iTunes / Spotify
Apply to be a guest on our podcast here
Show Notes:
In this Mission Matters session hosted by Adam Torres, Eraj Akhtar (CTO & Co-Founder, Excite Capital LLC) and Namuun Battulga (CEO, Jenko Tour JSC & Igo Hotel and Resorts) discuss physics-based, quantum-inspired AI trading and Mongolia’s emergence as a cost-efficient, secure data center location powered by a new 70MW plant. They share partner criteria, address security considerations, and outline a mission to scale globally distributed compute and real-economy growth across Asia.
Watch Full Interview:
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and I am so excited. Today we are in Singapore and we’re covering the Milken Institute’s Asia Summit 2025. For those of you that have been following the show for a long time, you know we’ve been talking about this one for a while.
We’ve been covering the Beverly Hills Summit, or the, I should say, the Beverly Hills Global Conference now for three or four years. We’ve done over 200 interviews bringing you, we hope, the best content from the conference. And today this interview is going to officially launch our Asia Summit series. So with that, let’s get started.
So my guest today, um, return guest onto the show. We’ve worked with each other multiple times before, so I’m excited. We got some ringers here. So first off, Raj Aktar. Um, Araj serves as general partner, chief technology officer, and co-founder of Excite Capital, where he leads the development of the firm’s quantum inspired AI systems and high performance compute architecture.
He is responsible for engineering, excites predictive infrastructure. Including its ized data pipelines, control, theoretic inference engines, and real time execution frameworks deployed across global markets. Let’s give it up for Raj. Thank. All right. And then we have Na Moon. So good to see you again. I was excited.
We were gonna get to work together again. Na Moon Bega, she’s an entrepreneur and when I think of Mongolia, first off Na Moon, I always think about you. I’m like, I tell Rag, I’m like, all right, we gotta ask Na Moon first thing first. So, NA Moon works across multiple industries. She leads Mongolia’s largest meat export company, uh, supplying premium products to international markets, and is actively shaping the nation’s.
Tourism landscape through her portfolio of hotels, hospitality, projects beyond food and tourism. Na Moon also drives innovation in FinTech and investment, bridging traditional industries with modern financial solutions to foster sustainable growth and global connectivity. All right, let’s get up for Na Moon.
Alright, Raj. So first thing, first, let’s just start with Excite Capital. Maybe tell us a little bit more about the firm and what you do. Yeah, absolutely. So Excite Capital is a high frequency trading quantitative fund. What we’ve done is taken approaches that traditional firms, such as the big banks or any of the other, uh, larger hedge funds out there do not use.
We’ve been able to vectorize and use computational parallel computing. To be able to predict markets at a level that is physics-based versus just based on sentiment news, headlines, and any type of traditional, smooth moving, average or clustering type analysis. Okay. So when I think about, um, and we’re gonna kind of go back and forth and you’re both welcome to jump into, but when I think about Mongolia and I start thinking about ai, I think about data centers, and I know we’ve talked quite a bit about tourism and some of our previous work.
Where do you wanna start with that? Like how do you wanna tee that up? Thank you, uh, for the great introduction. So I think everybody knows, um, where on the map Mongolia is today. Compared to many years ago. Um, Mongolia is best for data center because of the weather. It’s quite, uh, you know, breezier, chilly, colder than most countries all year round.
And because of that, it’s obviously good to build data centers and also because of the labor costs. So compared to the US market, uh, and. Uh, China for example, I think we are 15 to 20% less, uh, costlier than to build. So I think Mongolia is the best in terms of that. And of course we have because there’s no clouds.
We could do solar or we have natural resources such as thermal coal, so we could use that thermal coal for great. Price for, uh, electrics, uh, power, basically. Yeah. Yeah. And Raj, so why Asia? Why now? Like what brings you out here? And I know that ties in a little bit to what Na moon’s talking about as well, but why Asia?
Why now? Well, it’s no secret that I actually do have a love for Singapore, like none other. It’s a lovely place, magical, in fact. But outside of that, when we look at just. The level of comparison to US markets when it comes to Wall Street or Silicon Valley that are considered top tier. You have financial global hubs within Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Singapore that are not necessarily still considered at that same level.
Right? I, and I don’t wanna say that they’re tier two, uh, by any means, you know, they’re elevated. To a standard, but they don’t necessarily get included within the first round of raising capital first access to money and first, uh, right of refusal, if you will. I see Asia as a opportunity where you have a culture that is deeply rooted within, uh, stem.
Right. And society and technology integrate. But within the culture itself, there’s a respect for not only organization, but the advancement of math, science, and technology. Mm. And being able to utilize that, it helps us align our capital raising structure as well as our ability to deploy what we see is fit for the market.
And being able to introduce this to this, uh, side of the world. I think. There’s going to be this opportunity where we can grow high quality quantitative trading funds outside, inside of these markets and take it global. Hmm. Can you go, can you go a little bit further into your funds and, and your, your methodology around them, like exactly what you’re doing?
Yeah, absolutely. So we’re physics based, right? Um, and when I say physics based, what I see is a river. Right. Uh, you, you can see the topology of the waves at the surface level, but when we really get down into it. It’s the hidden currents, right? It’s the energy states that we’re comparing when you compare that to financial markets is price, volume, and time that we are looking at to be able to predict certain movements.
Uh, most people think that stock markets are random, they’re disorganized in, they’re chaotic. That’s not the case. There is a certain efficiency within the markets that we can look at, but at the same time, it depends on. Which algorithmic techniques that you are using to be able to really discern, uh, the difference?
Hmm. Maybe, maybe go a little bit into like what you’re doing, like whether it’s how, how AI relates, relates to this and machine learning. If you wanna tie that in, like go into that a little bit. You know, there’s been big talks about, uh, large language models, um, GPUs and what that means for AI in general.
This is the first time in the last, and I’ve been practicing AI for the last 10, 12 years, uh, where we’ve developed our own models. We’ve deployed them across, uh, a global scale in different environments, uh, across big tech, across government, and now we are applying it to the financial market. When you look at, uh, systems that are meant to be predictive and prescriptive at the same time, what is the comparison?
What is the difference that, uh, sets us apart? Well, traditionally, most financial firms have been based on sequential analysis mm-hmm. Of what they are doing when it comes to taking in market data. Right. Uh, they’ll analyze, they’ll make a prediction and they’re gonna execute some type of trade. Mm-hmm.
What we have done is we have parallelized, right. Uh, we’ve made this into a method where we split up transactions across thousands of different threads, different cores, and are able to compute at a scale that is unprecedented thus far. Hmm. So most financial firms are still operating at the millisecond or second level of data.
We are a micro and nanosecond, depending on the provider that we’re working with, but even within our own system, we’re able to boost that efficiency. Mm-hmm. And so as you look at what’s going forward, like going forward, what do you see as next for like excite capital for the firm? Like as things are moving really fast?
Yeah, for us, uh, the question right now is scale. We are looking at building out infrastructure across the globe. Uh, you know, a as my role as CTO of the firm, I wanna look at redundancy. I wanna be able to look at how we build out a network that is intuitive, that is efficient, that is not only using the network itself to optimize the data components of what we’re doing.
But being able to maximize low latency, ultralow latency, I should say, and then highest throughput. Mm-hmm. What are you, what are you asking investors here in Singapore to consider? We are looking for good partners, right? We want long-term relationships. I believe Singapore is a great opportunity not only for the uh, family offices there, the country itself.
But at the same time, for a firm like us where we want like-minded individuals, we want to grow people that understand capital efficiency. They understand the risk parameters that we are gonna operate within, and how you can build that into long-term capital growth and na moon asking you the same thing.
So when it comes to whether it’s building data centers or otherwise, um, partners, partners that you’re looking with to come into Mongolia, like what do you look for? Um, on the data center, I think we have, uh, done the most hardest part. Mm-hmm. Which is to build the power plant. So the 70 megawatt power plant will be finished building in just four weeks now.
Mm. And so I feel like because the hardest part is over and we can now raise funds for the data center, which would, phase one would be around 60 to $90 million. It’s much, uh, more easier. Mm-hmm. And of course I’m looking for partners on the investment. Yeah. And as well as technology. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah. You were, uh, I think maybe we could also come, come about some collaboration here.
Yeah. So we, we are, when it comes to our algorithm itself, a very agnostic approach. And, uh, to what field that we can apply our algorithms to. And when it comes to data centers, that is one of our vehicles as well that we’re not necessarily gonna mention right here ’cause we don’t wanna dilute, excite right at the moment.
But at the same time, you know, it, it’s energy optimization. Being able to put out data centers that can handle volume and, and the ne necessity for high performance computing is critical for every nation state. And there is demand of, you know, we had a conversation with one of the more popular tech firm leaders.
Uh, these guys know the names. I’m not going to drop it here, but he has said, I will buy all your capacity. You just tell me when. Hmm. So that is significant amounts of capital deployment that is readily available, that is accessible. And it should be globally distributed, right? Uh, you don’t want centralized control at the end of the day.
Awesome. Alright, here is my final question. I told you this will be kind of short, but main thing is we’d like to get other people involved too. This is more fireside chat, so, um, this is for everyone at home and to give some love to the milk and people. So they, they always welcome us and treat us well.
Wonderful. They do. Favorite part of the, uh, Milken Conference experience. It could be this one, it could be the one in Beverly Hills or any other ones you went to. Let’s give them some love. Who wants to take it? Either or whatever you first. My favorite part is of course, to see my beautiful friends, and of course that’s the most important for me to catch up from all over the world, from Europe, America, Asia, and where we unite to create beautiful ideas and partnership.
Yeah. Uh, I’ve been pushing other than our events. All right. Yes, of course. Other than that, thank you. No, the event, the events have been beautiful. Uh, we have this wonderful cell. Where are you, where are you at? We have this wonderful cell in Beverly Hills that we go to every year, and it’s, I don’t wanna say a dungeon, but it’s pretty cool.
It’s fun, it’s fun. We enjoy our time there. It’s typically lunchtime versus cocktail reception right now. But, uh, what I will say about milk in itself is it is one of the top think tanks in the world. I’m fortunate enough to be here because of the relationship we’ve built with the institute at its leadership level, and I.
We’ll say that the relationships not only at the collegiate realm, but uh, as well as just the network itself is rewarding. You meet good people, you meet people that are interested in changing the world and making it the most beneficial for the greater good. Awesome. Alright, questions? Had any questions?
Any questions for the panel? No, we’re ready to get back, neck word again then. Let’s do it. All right. Well thank you. Awesome.
So actually, uh, this question for, so you come out of data centers and people come to mind is the security. So the Mongolia, they use all the advantages, but you between Russia and China. So how you guarantee or give the people the confidence. In the world you do for the security concerns. I don’t think that’s a big problem anymore because of the innovation.
So we had this, uh, question actually because two of our investors are from America, and yes. So the technology that they will use is American technology, and now due to the development innovation developed innovations, we don’t have to worry about that anymore. Yeah, yeah. Hmm. Thank you. I’d like a follow up on that question itself, right?
There’s physical security versus uh, uh, data security itself. I think at the data perspective, we’re pretty secure where there’s been advancements in cryptography and then just being able to quantize certain types of data, uh, structures. So you cannot access the underlying layer. You’re in the right space at the right time.
Now, physically, Mongolia has been a stronghold for. Thousands of years, that’s not gonna change. Geopolitics aside, you know, Mongolian and Afghanistan share a common trait. It, it’s very difficult to overrun. Thank you. All right. All right. Let’s do it.
