BlackRock CEO Larry Fink told the Milken Institute that surging compute demand could spawn an entirely new asset class. Traders may one day buy and sell futures contracts on raw computing power, he said.
Speaking at the conference in Beverly Hills, Fink described compute as scarce enough to need its own derivatives market. He placed it alongside energy and agricultural commodities, which firms already hedge through structured futures.
Why Compute Could Become a New Asset Class
Fink said the country does not yet have the chips, memory, or power capacity needed for projected AI workloads. He compared raw compute to fuel and grain, commodities that markets already price through forward contracts.
The framing nudged the audience toward viewing compute as a tradable resource. Brookfield CEO Bruce Flatt joined Fink onstage for the discussion.
“A new asset class will be buying futures of compute.”
The BlackRock chairman framed compute as the next major commodity for financial markets, not just a cloud service. Institutions financing AI build-outs could hedge capacity costs the way airlines hedge fuel today.
That hedge would price the megawatts and chips behind every model query. Fink suggested the contracts would attract long-duration capital looking for tangible exposure.
Power, Chips, and Capital All Run Short
Fink also rejected the view that AI investment has formed a bubble. Demand still outpaces supply across the entire stack, he told the audience.
He warned that record funding rounds from cloud and chip giants may not cover global data center build-outs. He even predicted a coming shortage of capital in the sector.
“We’re short power, we’re short compute, we’re short chips.”
Fink told the Milken audience.
The remarks landed as BlackRock prepared to unveil a partnership with an unnamed hyperscaler later this week. The deal would push the firm’s $13.9 trillion balance sheet deeper into AI infrastructure.
It would also move the asset manager beyond financing and into direct stakes in the physical layer. Fink declined to name the partner ahead of the formal announcement.
Whether exchanges adopt compute futures will depend on how the industry defines a standard unit. That question remains unsettled across hardware generations and shifting AI workloads. Fink’s framing suggests BlackRock sees a benchmark arriving sooner than markets currently price. The firm appears to be positioning itself ahead of any race to set that standard.
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