Exchanges plan futures contracts for AI computing power

Financial firms and startups are developing futures contracts for GPU processing power used in artificial intelligence systems. The contracts would let traders buy and sell compute capacity at predetermined future prices, similar to oil futures. The cost to rent Nvidia's Blackwell chip for an hour has doubled since February, according to data from Ornn.

Exchange operators Intercontinental Exchange and CME Group have announced plans to launch GPU futures contracts.

Market participants and structure CoreWeave rents GPU access and would use futures to hedge against falling prices. Hyperscalers such as Meta and Google face rising prices and could use the contracts to manage costs. AI-native startups that require tokens but cannot sign long-term contracts would also participate.

Market makers including Citadel and Jane Street are expected to join the market along with speculators. Silicon Data CEO Carmen Li said the goal is a functional product rather than a casino.

Pricing trends and data sources Wayne Nelms, co-founder of Ornn, said the price of Nvidia's H100 chip rose 63 percent over the past month. Ornn and Silicon Data collect spot prices from smaller cloud providers because contracts between large technology companies remain private.

Brett Harrison, who runs the exchange Architect, compared the effort to establishing West Texas Intermediate as a benchmark for oil in the 1980s. Silicon Data prices already settle some Polymarket bets on compute costs.