Guotai Haitong: Computing power futures catalyze new narratives, industry long-term expansion logic continues.

Guotai Haitong released a research report stating that CME plans to launch computing power futures, anchored to the GPU rental price index, reflecting that the service boundary of the futures market is expanding from traditional bulk commodities to emerging industries. For futures companies, the addition of new varieties not only brings incremental space for trading volume, commission fees, and customer equity, but more importantly, it broadens the industry boundaries and risk management scenarios of serving customers, promoting the upgrade of business from traditional brokerage channels to comprehensive risk management services for industrial customers, and the long-term industry expansion logic is still ongoing. The main points of Guotai Haitong are as follows: Computing power futures: A significant starting point for the financialization of AI infrastructure. CME plans to launch computing power futures with Silicon Data, anchored to the GPU rental price index, essentially transforming the fluctuating computational costs faced by AI companies, cloud service providers, and data centers into tradable, pricable, and hedgable financial risks, which are expected to become important basic commodities in the digital economy era. Currently, it is still in the early nurturing stage, and follow-up attention is needed on the index credibility and trading liquidity. Currently, computing power futures are still awaiting regulatory review and have not yet been officially listed, so it is difficult to directly contribute to actual performance in the short term. The focus should be on four aspects in the future: first, whether the contract can be smoothly launched; second, whether the Silicon Data GPU rental price index can be accepted by industrial customers; third, whether trading volume and open interest can form effective liquidity after listing; fourth, whether real industrial entities such as AI companies, cloud service providers, and data centers participate in hedging, rather than just engaging in thematic trading with financial funds. Nanhua Futures is expected to benefit from the increase in overseas business brought by computing power futures. The company has an early overseas layout and has the basic clearing and brokerage services in overseas markets such as CME. If active trading is formed in the future contracts, Nanhua is expected to take on the trading and hedging needs of Chinese AI companies, cloud service providers, data centers, and financial institutions, driving the growth of overseas commission fees and customer margin deposits and further increasing margin-related income. The continuous expansion of new varieties opens up the growth space of the futures industry. CME plans to launch computing power futures, reflecting that the service boundary of the futures market is expanding from traditional bulk commodities to emerging industries; domestic regulators also continue to emphasize the improvement of the futures market's ability to serve the real economy, with lithium carbonate futures serving the new energy industry chain being a typical case. For futures companies, the addition of new varieties not only brings incremental space for trading volume, commission fees, and customer equity, but more importantly, it broadens the industry boundaries and risk management scenarios of serving customers, promotes the upgrade of business from traditional brokerage channels to comprehensive risk management services for industrial customers, and the logic of long-term industry expansion is still ongoing. Risk warning: Market fluctuations, new product launch progress is slower than expected, international geopolitical risks.