CME Compute Futures: Complete Guide

On August 11, 2026, CME Group and Silicon Data announced the launch of the first compute futures contracts on a major derivatives exchange. The products - H100 and B200 GPU rental index futures - will begin trading on NYMEX on October 5, 2026, pending regulatory review. This page covers everything known about these contracts.

Background: The CME + Silicon Data Partnership

CME Group is the world’s largest derivatives exchange by volume, operating NYMEX (energy futures), CBOT (agricultural and financial futures), and CME (financial futures). Silicon Data is an AI compute data company that has built the GPU Rental Price Index - a daily benchmark for H100 and B200 rental costs across cloud providers.

The partnership mirrors how CME has launched commodity futures in other markets: an established exchange provides regulatory infrastructure and clearing, while a specialized index provider supplies the settlement benchmark. Prior examples include CME’s natural gas futures (Henry Hub index), electric power contracts (regional price indexes), and real estate derivatives (Case-Shiller).

The Contracts

CME is launching two compute futures contracts:

Silicon Data H100 Rental Index Futures

Silicon Data B200 Rental Index Futures

Note: Full tick size, margin requirements, and listing month details are contained in the CME contract listing notice (SER-9785). ComputeWatcher will publish a detailed breakdown once the full specifications are released publicly.

The Silicon Data GPU Rental Price Index

Both CME contracts settle against Silicon Data’s GPU Rental Price Index - a daily benchmark measuring what it costs to rent H100 and B200 GPUs on an on-demand basis from cloud providers. Key methodology points:

• Aggregates pricing data across hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, GCP, Oracle) and neoclouds (CoreWeave, Lambda, Crusoe, Nebius, and others)
• Weighted by transaction volume - larger providers carry more weight
• Applies outlier filtering and trimmed-mean calculation
• Published daily as a USD-per-GPU-per-hour rate
• Covers on-demand pricing specifically - not reserved, committed, or negotiated rates
• Also produces regional sub-indexes (neo-cloud vs. hyperscaler splits)

The Silicon Data index is a proprietary index. Unlike Ornn’s OCPI (which distributes on Bloomberg Terminal), Silicon Data’s index is not publicly available for free. Access for futures settlement is managed through CME’s standard clearing process.

How to Access CME Compute Futures

CME compute futures are exchange-traded derivatives, accessible through the standard institutional futures market infrastructure:

• Open a futures trading account with a registered Futures Commission Merchant (FCM)
• Most major prime brokers and futures brokers (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, interactive Brokers, Advantage Futures, etc.) provide NYMEX access
• Margin requirements will be set by CME Clearing - expect initial margin reflecting typical energy futures standards
• Electronic order entry through CME Globex

Retail investors cannot directly trade CME futures without a futures account. Indirect exposure may become available through compute ETFs or structured products in the future.

CME vs. ICE: The Competing Compute Futures Market

The two-exchange structure mirrors other early commodity markets where competing products coexist before one gains dominant liquidity. In energy markets, NYMEX crude oil (WTI) and ICE Brent both survived and serve different participant bases. Compute futures may follow a similar pattern: CME serving US-oriented participants while ICE/Ornn serves Bloomberg-native institutional traders.