Littleowl

📊 Open question for the compute market: By the end of 2027, what % of APAC third-party GPU capacity will be traded on secondary markets rather than remain locked in long-term contracts? We’re talking about neoclouds and independent operators, excluding hyperscaler self-use. Secondary trading includes unused or residual contracted capacity changing hands. Our working hypothesis: 15–25%. Why? • Multi-year take-or-pay contracts still dominate, with limited early-exit options. • Secondary trading is emerging, but liquidity, standardisation, and counterparty trust are still developing. • As market infrastructure matures, more unused capacity could find a second buyer. What’s your prediction, and why? 👀 Let’s revisit this in 12 months and see who got closest.

Scenario: You sign a 12-month GPU contract for $2.5/hr. 3 months in: • Your project pivots and needs a different region • Your original contract still has 9 months left • You're locked in, paying $216K for ~13 GPUs you can't use What would you want? A) Transfer the contract to someone else B) Redeem it for other compute (different region/model) C) Eat the cost — that's business D) Something else? Tell us below. 💬 Reply with your choice + RAX Finance Waitlist address. 🎁 We’ll reward great answers with 5 Unboxing Opportunities! 🔗 app.rax.finance/waitlist/

Why regional compute pricing matters: the financing gap no one is talking about AI infrastructure spend is exploding — but ownership structures differ sharply by region, and that gap is showing up in financing costs.

Exactly. The bottleneck is connecting power, construction, equipment, and cloud capacity on one timeline. The suppliers and operators determine whether a site gets built quickly or stays stuck in the queue. Compute capacity creates most of its value only after it’s online and serving demand.

Why compute pricing lacks regional benchmarks: Observation 1: Massive regional spreads Same H100 card, wildly different economics across markets Not 10-20% differences — we're seeing 2-3x spreads Driven by: power costs, export controls, demand concentration Observation 2: No one publishes regional clears Cloud marketplaces show listing prices (not actual trades) Real contracts are confidential bilateral deals Lenders can't price risk without a settlement benchmark Observation 3: This is exactly where electricity was in the 1990s Before ISOs started publishing Locational Marginal Prices Before you could hedge regional basis risk Before financing could scale RAX is building the missing layer: regional price discovery for compute. Not because it's novel (electricity solved this 30 years ago) But because compute is $180B annual spend with zero pricing infrastructure in Asia/MENA. That's the gap we're closing.

The compute market is at the stage where: • Electricity was in the 1990s (before deregulation) • Oil was in the 1950s (before posted prices → spot markets) • Carbon credits are today (trading exists, but fragmented) We're watching commodity infrastructure form in real-time. What we're building: docs.rax.finance/

$40B, just to buy the chips. SpaceX is lining up Apollo-led financing for Nvidia capacity: about $10B in bank loans and $30B in investment-grade debt, aimed at Vera Rubin. It is a compute purchase large enough to be financed like infrastructure. Power, land, and chips are now the constraint. The market is underwriting the factory, not the demo. Via @wallstengine

Three things every commodity market needs: 1. Fungible units Gold: 1 oz = 1 oz anywhere Compute: every contract is unique ❌ 2. Price transparency Oil: WTI, Brent published daily Compute: real deals are confidential ❌ 3. Tradeable infrastructure Electricity: day-ahead markets exist Compute: can't resell a signed contract ❌ That's the gap we're closing. More on commodity formation: docs.rax.finance/