The race to build artificial intelligence is creating a new kind of commodity market, one where computing power is becoming as valuable as oil, electricity, and other critical resources that drive the global economy.
The artificial intelligence boom has sparked a new battle over one resource that most people never see: computing power. As companies race to build more powerful AI systems, access to high-performance computer chips and data center capacity has become one of the most valuable assets in the technology industry. Now, financial institutions and technology firms are working on something that would have seemed unusual just a few years ago: turning AI computing power into a tradable commodity.
The idea is simple. Just as companies buy and sell contracts linked to oil, natural gas, wheat, and electricity, supporters believe computing power could soon be traded in a similar way. The goal is to create a market where businesses can lock in future prices, protect themselves against rising costs, and better plan long-term investments.
At the center of the effort is CME Group, one of the world’s largest derivatives exchanges. The company is developing a futures market tied to AI computing power. The contracts would be based on the cost of renting graphics processing units (GPUs), the specialized chips that power modern artificial intelligence systems. These chips, particularly those produced by Nvidia, have become some of the most sought-after pieces of technology in the world.
Explaining the vision behind the project, CME Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Terry Duffy made a striking comparison. “As the backbone of the digital economy, compute is the new oil of the 21st century,” Duffy said. The comparison reflects how important computing power has become.
Every AI model, chatbot, image generator, recommendation engine, and data-processing system depends on large amounts of computing resources. As demand continues to surge, the cost of accessing those resources has become increasingly volatile.
For many companies, securing enough computing capacity has become a major challenge. AI developers, cloud providers, research organizations, and startups are competing for access to the same pool of hardware. During periods of high demand, rental prices for advanced GPUs can rise significantly, making it difficult for companies to accurately forecast costs.
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Supporters of a compute market believe futures contracts could help solve part of that problem. Businesses would be able to lock in prices months in advance, reducing uncertainty and making it easier to plan investments. Investors could also use the contracts to speculate on future demand, just as they do in commodity markets today.
Don Wilson, founder and CEO of trading firm DRW, is among those backing the idea. “The launch of a compute futures market is an important solution to that problem that can help market participants manage price volatility and plan with greater certainty,” Wilson said. He added that he has believed for some time that compute could eventually become one of the world’s largest commodities.
The push comes as technology companies continue investing billions of dollars in AI infrastructure. Major firms including Meta, Oracle, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are spending heavily on data centers and computing capacity to support increasingly advanced AI models. The scale of investment has convinced many investors that computing power is becoming a strategic resource in its own right.
Not everyone is convinced. Some analysts argue that computing power differs from traditional commodities because technology changes so quickly. A barrel of oil today is essentially the same as a barrel of oil years ago. Computer chips, however, are constantly evolving, with newer generations often delivering dramatically better performance. Critics question whether a futures market can easily keep pace with such rapid technological change.
Others worry that introducing financial trading could increase speculation and create new risks. Discussions on finance forums and industry communities have raised concerns that excessive financial activity around compute markets could create bubbles or distort pricing if demand expectations become detached from reality.
Despite those concerns, momentum behind the idea continues to grow. Advocates argue that every major commodity market evolved because businesses needed better tools to manage uncertainty. They believe AI computing power is reaching that stage as demand grows and infrastructure becomes more expensive.
Whether compute ultimately becomes as important as oil remains to be seen. What is clear is that artificial intelligence is creating entirely new markets around the resources needed to power it. If these efforts succeed, the future of AI may involve not only building smarter models but also trading the computing power that makes those models possible.
For now, one message is becoming increasingly common across Wall Street and Silicon Valley: in the age of artificial intelligence, computing power is no longer just a technical resource. It is rapidly becoming an economic asset that companies, investors, and governments cannot afford to ignore.
