Injective, a layer-1 blockchain, has introduced a new perpetual futures market that tracks the rental prices of five Nvidia GPUs. This market allows traders to speculate on changes in AI computing costs with leverage of up to 10x. The Super Intelligence Compute Index (SICI) monitors rental prices for Nvidia’s H100, B200, H200, A100, and RTX 4090 chips, using data from LO:TECH, a London-based market data firm.
The index assigns the highest weight to the H100 at 40%, followed by the B200 at 25%. It updates hourly based on a seven-day average of rental prices. Traders can take positions on whether the index will rise or fall, using USDC as margin. This launch expands Injective’s August 2025 market, which initially focused solely on the H100 GPU.
The new futures market aims to help companies developing AI models hedge against rising computing costs. Many AI developers rent computing power from cloud providers like CoreWeave and Nebius instead of purchasing GPUs outright. As rental prices fluctuate with demand, this market could also help GPU providers protect against declining rental revenue.
The launch comes amid growing concerns about the financial sustainability of AI cloud providers. Research firm Gartner warned that over 80% of specialist AI cloud providers, or neoclouds, could cease operating independently by 2030 due to insufficient returns. Elon Musk echoed these concerns, stating that more than 200 neocloud providers could face failure or consolidation as lenders become reluctant to finance companies dependent on AI data center revenue.
Meanwhile, major tech companies are restructuring to manage costs as they invest heavily in AI infrastructure. Microsoft, which forecast $175 billion in capital expenditures for 2026, is offering voluntary buyouts to about 60,000 employees. Meta, having already invested over $100 billion in AI, cut 8,000 jobs in May as part of a cost-reduction effort.