The EconomistJun 24, 2026 – 9.00amIn 2014, as cloud computing was taking off, a group of German technologists and financial-platform operators had an idea. They launched the Deutsche Börse Cloud Exchange, on which firms could buy and sell spare computing capacity.The effort to turn processing power into a liquid asset did not scale well, according to Randolf Roth, its chief executive and veteran of the exchange business. Standardising central processing units (CPUs), the general-purpose chips that predominated at the time, proved too difficult and integrating different types of cloud capacity too expensive. Hopes that futures and options would follow in the wake of the original launch were dashed. The venture shut down in 2016.The EconomistSubscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Fetching latest articles