CME Group and Silicon Data to Launch First Compute Futures Contracts | LeapRate

CME Group and Silicon Data have announced plans to launch the world’s first compute futures market.

The move essentially positions GPU processing power as an emerging financial asset class.

The new contracts will allow traders, financial institutions, AI developers, and cloud service providers to manage price risk and volatility in the compute market, which underpins the global AI industry. 

The products will be benchmarked against Silicon Data’s GPU indices, the world’s first daily benchmarks for on-demand GPU rental rates, bringing standardised reference pricing to the market.

“As the backbone of the digital economy, compute is the new oil of the 21st century,” CME Group Chairman and Chief Executive Terry Duffy commented. “Every AI model trained, every transaction cleared, and every byte of data processed runs on compute, which is becoming a fast-emerging asset class in its own right.”

Carmen Li, Chief Executive Officer of Silicon Data, stated: “At Silicon Data, we built our benchmarks to bring consistency, transparency and real-time visibility to GPU markets that have historically lacked standardized reference pricing. 

“Partnering with CME Group brings the scale, market structure and credibility needed to help transform compute from an opaque operational cost into a more mature and risk-manageable financial market.”