According to a Reuters report citing sources on May 28, the Shanghai Futures Exchange is in the preliminary stages of designing an AI Token futures contract, with the research work directly driven by the competitive landscape between China and the U.S. in the AI sector. Unlike the GPU computing power leasing futures being prepared by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the Shanghai Futures Exchange product is expected to be directly linked to the Token consumption used to price AI services, rather than the leasing price of underlying computing power — both design approaches aim to allow AI supply chain companies to hedge against inference cost volatility. Official data shows that since the beginning of 2024, daily Token usage in China has surged by approximately 1,000 times, exceeding 140 trillion by the end of March 2026, and the computing power shortage has already forced several domestic large-model providers to impose access quotas on users.
The sources emphasized that a formal application to regulators has not yet been scheduled, and plans could still change. Baocheng Futures released a research report earlier this month predicting that China’s computing power futures will still take 3 to 5 years to materialize, with current market fragmentation being a major obstacle. Xiao Feng, chairman of HashKey Group, positions Tokens as the “digital fuel” driving AI models, while Shao Yilei, dean of the Shanghai AI Finance Institute at East China Normal University, pointed out that China and the U.S. are the only two countries with the capacity for mass production of AI, and that mastering Token pricing power will play a key role in bilateral competition. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink also said earlier this month that surging Token demand could give rise to an entirely new asset class.