Artificial intelligence labs are after computing power. Kalshi doesn’t have any to offer them but they’ve got something else that might be of some use, according to Bloomberg: a tool that plots the predicted future price of computing power. So, that’s something!
There really is some value for companies to know where the cost of compute is going—especially since currently, it’s mostly just going up. Having a sense of just how much compute is going to cost allows companies to try to lock in a price with a provider before the price spikes.
Demand for compute continues to climb faster than the ongoing data center buildout is able to keep up with. In fact, former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger recently told CNBC that demand is “almost unlimited.” That is notably more than the amount of energy and processing power available, which actually does have an upper limit.
Is the cost of compute predictable? #
A recent report from Apollo Global Management described current compute capacity as “effectively sold out,” which has created a bottleneck where the price to rent GPUs keeps climbing faster than new ones are spun up and made available—an issue that is likely only going to get worse as more and more agentic AI tools become available, as recent research suggests they consume up to 136.5 times more energy per query than most generative AI models.
Kalshi’s new tool is supposed to serve as a sort of indicator for companies dealing with those realities of limited resources while trying to generate unlimited growth. Per Bloomberg, it’ll reportedly offer a forward tracking curve of compute, giving an early outlook as to where the cost of computing power is headed in the near-term.
Kalshi will reportedly analyze weekly and monthly contracts for computing power and use an algorithm to predict the future curve, spitting out a price that it expects to see paid in the future. The project reportedly aims to stretch its predictions as far out as a year into the future.
Bloomberg didn’t have details as to whether or not Kalshi will create a market around the price and let people bet on whether the real price will be higher or lower, but that feels like a pretty safe assumption given that it is kind of the prediction market’s whole deal. Plus, it wouldn’t be alone in trying to monetize the curve of compute availability. The Bloomberg report notes that a number of exchanges are looking to list compute futures contracts, which would allow people to trade on the resource like an asset. So if you’re looking for a way to short the future of AI, well, it seems it’s coming.