On the Sunday Times Rich List 2026, XTX Markets founder Alex Gerko is estimated at about £16.006 billion (~RMB 141.7 billion), eighth in the UK. The list implies a one-year rise of about £7.261 billion (~RMB 64.3 billion), or roughly £19.89 million a day. XTX ranks among top global market makers and is one of Britain’s most profitable private firms: about 300 staff with reported revenue per employee above RMB 100 million, and about $250 billion in daily trading volume. UK Companies House filings put 2025 combined revenue of its three main UK operating entities at about £3.93 billion (~RMB 35 billion). Like China’s High-Flyer, it was founded around 2015 and is known for heavy self-built AI compute for trading research.
From Moscow maths PhD to London FX market making
Born in Moscow in 1979, Gerko earned a maths PhD at Moscow State University and an economics master’s at the New Economic School. The FT has said he concluded he would not become a world-class academic, joining Deutsche Bank in 2004, then GSA Capital, where he built an FX desk and later ran other assets. In 2015 he launched XTX with a small team—the name nods to the XᵀX term in linear regression. The model mirrors Citadel Securities and Jane Street: quote to clients, earn the spread. The firm says machine learning prices more than 53,000 instruments across equities, fixed income, FX, commodities and crypto.
Revenue still trails U.S. giants—Jane Street’s 2025 net trading revenue was about $39.6 billion; Citadel Securities’ 2025 revenue was near ~RMB 90 billion—but productivity looks extreme: Jane Street has 3,000+ people (~$13.2 million revenue per head on 2025 figures) versus XTX’s ~300 and reported >RMB 100 million per head after only ~11 years. Early edge: FX, then less saturated than U.S. equities/options, with London as the FX hub and post-crisis flow shifting from banks to specialists. Co-CEO Zar Amrolia, formerly Deutsche’s global FX head, helped XTX leapfrog Deutsche in Euromoney’s spot FX rankings within a year, Bloomberg reported.
AI arms race: Iceland supercomputer, Finnish campuses
A 2024 FT report said XTX research runs mainly on an Iceland supercomputer holding ~400 PB, after spending more than £150 million (~RMB 1.3 billion+) on about 25,000 AI chips, mostly Nvidia. High-Flyer’s ~RMB 1.2 billion cluster spend in 2020–2021 is a frequent China parallel. In 2025 XTX said it would invest over €1 billion in five Finnish data centres, the first due that year and sized like three football pitches. Peers are matching: Jane Street in April 2026 put $1 billion into CoreWeave and committed ~$6 billion of AI cloud spend; Jump runs multiple large research DCs; QRT partners with Iceland’s atNorth for dense compute. For compute-credit context see CoreWeave founders and CDS; for China quant AI clusters, High-Flyer and quant models.
Tax, investing, philanthropy
Gerko topped the Sunday Times Tax List in 2023 and 2024 (estimated tax ~£487.4 million, then >RMB 6 billion). XTX’s site lists investments including Anthropic, Groq and Wayve. Philanthropy includes a £1 million gift to IHES in 2023 and, with his wife, 1729 Maths School in north London for ages 11–18 with scholarships. The piece likens him to James Simons—maths background, quant firm, big science giving—while noting today’s race adds AI skill and compute stockpiles to “smart brains.”
FAQ
Q: What is Gerko’s estimated wealth and one-year gain? A: About £16.006 billion (UK No. 8 on the 2026 Sunday Times Rich List), up roughly £7.261 billion (~RMB 64.3 billion) in a year.
Q: How does XTX make money? A: Market making across many assets via ML price forecasts on 53,000+ instruments. 2025 revenue of three main UK entities was about £3.93 billion; daily volume about $250 billion.
Q: Why compare him to High-Flyer’s Liang Wenfeng? A: Both firms date to around 2015 and poured capital into private AI clusters for trading research; XTX’s public details include the Iceland system, £150M+ in AI chips, and a €1B+ Finland DC plan.
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