The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Aug. 19 requested public comment on how U.S. exchanges should list and oversee derivatives tied to AI computing capacity, marking an initial regulatory step rather than an approval for trading. Chairman Michael S. Selig said a robust compute derivatives market is needed for the U.S. to compete in AI and described the consultation as the first step toward establishing clear rules for the U.S. computing market. The 19-page request, identified as RIN 3038-AF77, asks about the scale and liquidity of the compute spot market, benchmark reliability, manipulation risks, customer protection, retail disclosures, anti-money laundering controls, position limits and perpetual compute futures; comments will be due 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, which had not occurred as of Aug. 20. The review comes as CME Group and Silicon Data target Oct. 5 launches, subject to regulatory review, for two cash-settled futures linked to Nvidia H100 and Blackwell B200 rental benchmarks. The CFTC said compute markets often rely on private bilateral deals with uneven price transparency, raising questions about whether rental-rate benchmarks are resilient enough for futures settlement and whether the contracts can help AI developers, cloud firms and data center operators hedge rental costs.