The Compute Exchange Inc., a startup that matches buyers and sellers of graphics processing units, is launching a GPU inventory management capability intended to give enterprise buyers a consolidated view of available and upcoming AI computing capacity across more than 100 providers.
The new feature extends the company’s request-for-quotation marketplace by letting buyers browse current, reserved and forward inventory and compare prices, specifications, locations, service-level agreements and commercial terms. Its scope currently covers major Nvidia Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. accelerators, including the H100, H200, B200, A100 and MI series, as well as complete servers and commitments for inference tokens.
GPU procurement has become increasingly complicated as the number of specialized GPU cloud operators, or neoclouds, has expanded. Compute Exchange Chief Executive Carmen Li estimated that the market now includes hundreds of such providers, making direct comparison impractical.
“You don’t want to call 400 salespeople and compare specs and negotiate,” she said. “It’s just not efficient.”
Compute Exchange’s existing RFQ service routes a buyer’s requirements to providers believed to have matching capacity. The inventory capability adds listings that buyers can search directly and includes capacity available immediately as well as equipment and services expected to come online later. Buyers can compare suppliers and initiate a transaction through the platform.
Inventory data flows into the marketplace through application programming interfaces or spreadsheet uploads. Li said Compute Exchange has worked with more than 100 vendors during the past 18 months and is adding nearly one provider a day to its rolls.
The company says it verifies providers through know-your-business and know-your-customer checks. For forward capacity, it reviews purchase orders and colocation arrangements. For installed systems, it can also verify chip identifiers, configurations, network health and performance measures such as floating-point operations and thermal degradation.
“We try to verify and give as much information as we can to the users, not just the specs,” she said.
Compute Exchange does not own GPUs or operate data centers, a fact that Li said removes the potential conflict created when a marketplace also sells its own capacity. Buyers initially see the technical details, benchmark results, location, price and service commitments attached to an offer, but not the provider’s identity. Names are disclosed after a buyer selects one or more candidates for further evaluation.
“Neutrality is the most critical thing,” Li said. “We don’t take positions.”
Providers pay a standard platform fee only when a transaction is completed. The new inventory feature carries no additional charge. Li said the company has generated more than seven figures of revenue so far this year and is profitable. Requests on the marketplace have ranged from a single node to 20,000 nodes, though she said limited inventory has prevented the company from fulfilling more than about 40% of RFQ volume.
The marketplace supports reserved and forward contracts for GPUs and tokens, as well as secondary sales of physical hardware. That secondary market provides buyers with a way to resell capacity they no longer need.
Li said supply is expected to increase next year, but cautioned that demand could rise just as quickly. Prices also vary with chip type, geography and contract structure, limiting the usefulness of simple price comparisons.
“The price is only one indicator,” she said. “You get the specs, get the [service-level agreements], locations and prices. It’s up to you to choose.”
Compute Exchange ultimately aims to evolve from a marketplace into a fuller exchange with automated matching and spot trading. For now, Li said, its immediate value is reducing the time buyers spend contacting providers and negotiating separately while giving sellers another channel to bring unused or future capacity to market.
