An emerging compute-energy benchmark

Compute is becoming a commodity. Its economics need a benchmark.

GPU compute is institutionalizing fast — futures, price discovery, project finance. Those markets price the output. The CEH Infrastructure Index is an emerging benchmark for the input that sets the durable economics: the energy-cost basis of the infrastructure that produces compute.

$600B+
AI infrastructure capex
2026 · Goldman Sachs estimate
+38%
H100 lease price, 6 mo.
Oct 2025 – Mar 2026
+48%
Blackwell spot, 90 days
Feb – Apr 2026
H2 2026
CME + ICE compute futures
Announced May 2026

Source: CME Group · ICE / Ornn · Goldman Sachs · Silicon Data (2026)

01The Moment

GPU compute is becoming a traded commodity

Two exchanges moved within ten days — a signal that institutional conviction about compute-as-commodity has reached a tipping point. The scaffolding crude oil took decades to build is forming around live compute prices now.

Price discovery arrives
01
CME Group + Silicon Data (H100 Rental Index) and ICE + Ornn (OCPI, on the Bloomberg Terminal) — two cash-settled compute benchmarks announced within ten days, establishing reference prices the market never had.
Hedging makes projects bankable
02
Forward contracts and options let developers lock compute costs, turning unhedged AI-infrastructure exposure into financeable, predictable cost structures for project-finance lenders.
Collateral & insurance follow
03
Daily marks enable LTV monitoring on GPU-backed loans and an actuarial basis for infrastructure risk — the same institutional scaffolding crude oil grew once it had a reference price.

02The Gap

The market is pricing the output.
Not the input.

The new futures price what compute rents for — the output of a data center. But the largest unhedged variable, and the most durable advantage, sits upstream: what it costs to produce a unit of compute. That basis can differ sharply between two otherwise-identical sites, compounds across every compute-hour delivered, and outlives every chip generation that runs on top of it. There is no standardized, comparable benchmark for it.

03The Standard

A unit for the economics underneath compute

An emerging standard being established for the supply side of the compute market — measuring the cost to produce compute, not just the price to rent it.

The unit
Compute Energy Hour (CEH)
A standardized unit for the energy intensity — and energy cost — of compute. Where GPU indices measure what compute rents for, CEH measures what it costs to produce.
The index
CEH Infrastructure Index
Applies the unit to rank infrastructure on the durability and efficiency of its compute economics — an emerging supply-side benchmark that complements the demand-side futures.
The advantage
A basis that compounds
Chips churn; the power block doesn't. Engineered to stay interchangeable across GPU generations, the energy infrastructure outlives the silicon it feeds — so a targeted 40–65% edge in the cost basis versus grid-default infrastructure is designed to compound across every chip cycle, not just every compute-hour.

Full methodology, component architecture, and site-level scoring are shared with institutional counterparties under NDA. This page describes the opportunity, not the mechanism.

04Who It's For

Built for the participants forming this market

Commercial hedgers
Data centers, AI labs, and cloud providers — benchmark the cost basis underneath the rates you hedge.
Capital & project finance
Banks and infrastructure debt funds — underwrite AI infrastructure on durable, comparable compute economics.
Insurers & risk
Underwriters and rating agencies — a supply-side reference for compute-infrastructure exposure.
Allocators & index users
Funds and CTAs — a measurement of the input that sits alongside the new compute-price benchmarks.

Market Context

“The demand for computing power is so large that a new asset class will spring up.”

— Larry Fink, Chairman & CEO, BlackRock
Bloomberg Television / Milken Institute

Bloomberg Television. Statement cited as independent market context. CEH is not affiliated with BlackRock or Larry Fink, and this statement does not constitute an endorsement of CEH.

05Engage

An emerging standard — early by design

The CEH Infrastructure Index is being established now, alongside the market it measures. We work with institutional counterparties evaluating compute-energy infrastructure, benchmarking logic, and the capital questions around them.