What a Compute Forward Curve Would Need to Exist

Conditions under which term pricing for accelerator capacity becomes constructible: fungibility, delivery definition, and a settlement reference.

A forward curve is not a chart. It is the residue of a market that has agreed on three things: what is being delivered, when it is delivered, and what price is used to settle a disagreement. Compute has none of the three in a form two counterparties can sign.

What has to be fixed first

  • Delivery definition. An hour of an H100 is not an hour of an H100. Interconnect topology, host CPU, storage bandwidth and operator reliability move realised throughput by a wide margin on identical silicon.
  • Fungibility. Netting requires that a unit bought from one venue can discharge an obligation to another. Today it cannot, which is why the market is a set of bilateral rental agreements rather than a market.
  • A settlement reference. Every liquid commodity forward settles against something published. Compute has no assessed price, no assessment methodology, and no assessor.

Where a curve could form first

The plausible entry point is not the general case but a narrow one: a single generation, a single region, monthly delivery, physically settled by a venue that already holds inventory. Curves grow outward from a liquid point; they are never designed whole.

Open questions

  1. Does a delivery standard emerge from a venue, a lender, or a buyer consortium?
  2. Is the first term instrument capacity or power?
  3. What is the shortest tenor at which a dealer would quote two-sided?