Wall Street is turning Nvidia's AI chips into a new futures market: Chart of the Day

Wall Street is gearing up to create a new futures market centered around Nvidia's AI chips. The graphics processing units (GPUs) are expected to be priced based on their hourly rental costs, with CME Group set to launch these contracts on October 5th. The contracts will be based on benchmarks from Silicon Data, which tracks the rental prices of the H100 and B200 GPUs.

The H100 benchmark is currently around $2.68 per GPU-hour, while the B200 benchmark is about $5.66. However, the market faces challenges similar to those experienced with other commodities, such as standardized benchmarks and industry agreement on the pricing of the chips. This new futures market could provide valuable insights into the demand and pricing of AI infrastructure, potentially serving as a third dimension to the traditional price dimension in the derivatives market.