Shanghai Futures Exchange Prepares Token Futures Linked to AI Token Consumption

According to monitoring by Beating, Shanghai Futures Exchange is preparing to launch futures contracts linked to AI token consumption, marking an escalation in China-U.S. competition in AI and financial derivatives. Unlike CME and ICE's planned GPU computing power lease futures, Shanghai's contracts directly track token consumption metrics used for AI service pricing, aiming to provide hedging tools for computing and inference costs across the AI industry chain.

Official data shows China's daily token usage has surged 1,000 times since early 2024, exceeding 14 trillion tokens as of March 2026. Commodity index firms released multiple computing power indices in December 2025 to serve as underlying benchmarks for future contracts.