China is designing a futures market for AI tokens, potentially taking a different approach than US exchanges developing compute power futures.
The Shanghai Futures Exchange is in early stages of designing futures contracts for AI tokens, the smallest unit of information processed by AI models.
The move is partly driven by AI rivalry with the US, as CME Group and ICE prepare GPU compute futures. In contrast, Shanghai's product would be tied to AI tokens used for pricing AI services.
China's daily token usage has surged 1,000-fold since early 2024 to over 140 trillion by end of March.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said surging token demand could spawn a new asset class in compute futures.
