Prediction market platform Kalshi has taken a significant step toward institutionalizing the computing power market by launching forward curves based on the prices of its prediction contracts. Market participants can now gain transparent insight into expected future prices for renting Nvidia chips — specifically the B200, H200, and A100 models.
This event marks an attempt to transform a high-tech resource into a standardized commodity, similar to oil or grain. Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour rightly notes that mature commodity markets perform three key functions: forming price expectations, efficiently allocating capital, and managing risk. Computing power, which has become one of the most scarce resources in the modern economy, has until now lacked such infrastructure.
The situation resembles the oil market before the NYMEX exchange emerged. Currently, computing power is traded exclusively through over-the-counter deals — directly between chip manufacturers and data center operators. The lack of public price benchmarks creates massive inefficiencies and complicates long-term planning. Kalshi offers a solution by aggregating disparate market expectations into a single, transparent forward curve.
Scale of opportunity: from $700 billion to $10 trillion
The scale of the potential market is staggering. According to Kalshi estimates, the largest data center operators will spend over $700 billion on computing power this year, and this figure could grow to $7–10 trillion by 2030. If the market follows the path of traditional commodity markets, the volume of liquid derivatives could exceed the underlying spot market by 10–20 times.
Of course, computing power is still far from full standardization — the diversity of chips, classes, terms, locations, and contract structures is too great. However, the launch of forward curves is a first step toward creating unified standards. Kalshi sees the next stage as the emergence of futures and perpetual contracts, which will ultimately shape the market into a full-fledged financial instrument.
Analyst comment: Kalshi's initiative is not just the launch of a new tool, but an attempt to create infrastructure for an entire asset class that has remained in the shadows. If the computing power market truly begins to function along commodity lines, we will witness the formation of one of the largest derivatives markets of the decade. This could also significantly impact chip demand dynamics and, consequently, Nvidia's stock itself.