Kalshi and rivals race to launch trillion-dollar compute futures market

When jet-fuel prices spiked during the Iran war, airlines that had hedged their fuel costs were protected; today, AI-heavy companies seek a similar shield for compute expenses. Kalshi’s chief Tarek Mansour predicts the compute sector will hit $10 trillion by 2030 and that futures could eventually be ten to fifteen times larger than the spot market, creating a $100-$150 trillion opportunity. The company has launched prediction-market contracts for five chip types, using data from Ornn to set odds and generate forward curves, though price forecasts have deviated about 10 % from actual outcomes.

Competitors such as Polymarket offer fewer contracts, while CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange have announced plans for exchange-traded compute products. Experts cite the opacity of B2B compute pricing and rapid hardware efficiency gains as obstacles, suggesting that traditional exchanges and banks may dominate the eventual OTC swap and futures landscape. Kalshi has hired former CFTC official Jeff Bandman to lead a futures division, emphasizing its focus on rapid market creation rather than competing across the entire compute space.