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CME Group is launching the first futures market for computing power, in a sign that the AI boom is turning the output of sophisticated chips into a major asset class.
The new contracts for the future rental of graphics processing units, or GPUs, which can take months to order and can swing sharply in price, will allow investors and technology firms to bet on or hedge the future cost of computing power.
CME, one of the world’s biggest derivatives exchanges, is partnering with Silicon Data, a firm backed by Chicago-based trading giant DRW that provides pricing indices and other market data about AI computing power. The new contracts will be based on Silicon Data’s indices.
“Compute is the new oil of the 21st century,” said CME’s chief executive Terry Duffy, adding that it is “becoming a fast-emerging asset class in its own right”.
The AI boom has fuelled massive demand for computing power, which labs use to train large language models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude.
Chipmaker Nvidia is among firms to have highlighted the need for investment in compute to continue scaling AI technology and its capabilities. Silicon Data currently provides daily rental rates for A100, H100 and B200 chips on financial data platforms such as LSEG and Bloomberg.
Futures markets allow market participants to lock in the price of a commodity to be bought or sold at a mutually agreed date in the future. The first futures contract linked to a physical barrel of crude oil, the world’s largest commodity market, was traded in 1983 in New York.
The firms aims to launch the contracts later this year to meet the significant demand from tech companies, banks, investors and others, according to Carmen Li, chief executive of Silicon Data.
“There are billions, if not trillions, of dollars of contracts being signed,” she said in an interview. “The desire to manage volatility and risk is real.”
In an interview with the Financial Times at the end of 2024, DRW founder Don Wilson said that compute could become the biggest commodity in the world and that he was exploring ways to trade it.
Shares in major chip providers have rallied hard this year, as tech hyperscalers have committed hundreds of billions of dollars to grow their AI-related infrastructure, including chips.
US government-backed Intel is up over 200 per cent, while AMD has doubled. Nvidia is up 17 per cent.
