Injective Launches Futures for Nvidia GPU Rentals

The first-layer blockchain Injective has launched a perpetual futures market tracking rental prices for five Nvidia graphics processors. As announced by the company on Monday, the Super Intelligence Compute Index (SICI) allows betting on changes in computing costs for AI with leverage up to 10x.

The index tracks rental prices for Nvidia H100, B200, H200, A100, and RTX 4090, using data from computing service platforms collected by the London firm LO:TECH. The highest weight is given to H100 (40%), followed by B200 (25%). The index is updated every hour based on a seven-day moving average of rental prices, and traders open positions on increases or decreases using USDC as margin.

The launch expands the August 2025 offering when Injective introduced a market tied to H100 rental prices: the product now covers five models. Companies developing AI models often rent capacity from cloud providers like CoreWeave and Nebius instead of purchasing GPUs. As rental prices fluctuate with demand, the futures market can help developers hedge against rising computing costs, while GPU suppliers can protect against declining rental income.

Concerns about profitability

The launch coincided with questions about whether companies providing AI capacity can recoup the creation and operation of GPU infrastructure. In October, Gartner warned that more than 80% of specialized AI cloud providers, known as neoclouds, may cease independent operations by 2030 due to insufficient return on investment. On Sunday, Elon Musk stated that more than 200 neoclouds could face collapse or consolidation due to creditors' reluctance to finance companies dependent on AI data center revenue. Musk has a financial interest in the sector through SpaceX: its 'Super Intelligence' business recently reported $7.6 billion in revenue for Q3, up 830% year-over-year, partly due to new cloud service agreements.

Meanwhile, major tech companies are restructuring operations to contain expenses amid billion-dollar investments in AI infrastructure. On October 26, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft, forecasting about $175 billion in capital expenditures for 2026, is offering voluntary compensation upon departure to approximately 60,000 eligible employees. Meta, having already invested over $100 billion in AI, cut 8,000 jobs in May as part of a restructuring to reduce costs.