The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and NATIVX have jointly announced plans to introduce a GPU computing power futures contract based on NATIVX's COIL index, aiming to provide price discovery and risk management tools for the global computing power market.
The COIL index, which stands for Compute-and-Connectivity Oil Index, is a benchmark that standardizes the pricing of computing power and network connectivity in terms of energy units. Its objective is to maximize the utilization of computing resources by normalizing GPU computing power prices into stable, auditable energy units, thereby eliminating price distortions caused by varying electricity costs across different regions.
Trabue Bland, Senior Vice President of ICE Futures Markets, stated that driven by AI, computing power has become a significant asset class. The new contract will offer global clients opportunities for price discovery through a hedgeable index and can create trading synergies with their existing natural gas and electricity futures. Cole Crawford, Founder and Chairman of NATIVX, noted that the sustained growth of AI depends on transforming computing power from a fragmented and unpredictable operational cost into transparent, manageable market infrastructure. The combination of the COIL index with ICE's global futures market provides this emerging commodity with a much-needed, transparent, and regulated trading venue.
Computing power is closely tied to energy, with electricity costs being a major input for large-scale computing facilities. Fluctuations in power prices directly impact the economics of AI workloads. Trading the GPU futures contract alongside ICE's existing electricity and natural gas futures is expected to create an integrated risk hedging environment for computing power users and operators.
The contract is anticipated to launch in the second half of 2026, with the specific timing dependent on regulatory approval progress.
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