Silicon Data, a startup aiming to create a reference price for AI compute, has closed a $30 million Series A funding round. The company wants to establish an index for GPU rental costs that could serve as the settlement benchmark for a Wall Street futures contract, addressing a gap in the booming AI industry where, despite hundreds of billions of dollars spent annually on data centres and GPUs, there is still no standardised way to price compute or hedge against price fluctuations.

The firm plans to launch compute futures trading on the CME on 5 October, subject to regulatory approval. The announcement featured on TechCrunch's Equity podcast, where Steve Hou, Silicon Data's head of research, discussed the underlying health of the AI buildout with host Rebecca Bellan, arguing that the data tells a more positive story than recent headlines suggesting chip depreciation and stalled data centre projects.