Abaxx Exchange launches first cloud-native commodity futures exchange and clearinghouse on AWS

Abaxx Exchange has built a next-generation, regulated futures marketplace to deliver better tools, benchmarks, and technology for today’s global challenges, including the energy transition. Its cloud-native platform offers physically settled futures in LNG, carbon, nickel sulphate, lithium carbonate, and gold—providing more reliable hedges than cash-settled derivatives. “Physical settlement ensures futures prices converge with the underlying market, reinforcing price discovery and strengthening risk management,” says Shanmei Lim, chief markets officer.

To achieve its vision of smarter, more transparent markets, Abaxx needed a flexible, scalable foundation. Abaxx’s IT leadership had prior experience with AWS and recognized the cloud’s potential to support a high-availability, compliant environment that could scale on demand. Richard Fang, chief technology officer at Abaxx Exchange, says, “AWS was the right provider to support our technology stack. It gave us the operational efficiency and resilience we needed—right out of the box.”

Abaxx worked closely with AWS account teams and Solutions Architects to meet the stringent regulatory requirements of a licensed futures exchange and clearinghouse. AWS experts advised on architecture, networking, compliance, and container strategies suited to a global trading platform.

By containerizing applications with AWS Fargate and managing clusters with Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS), Abaxx accelerated deployment and scaled on demand without managing servers. “We didn’t have to build for peak load from the start,” says Fang. “With AWS, we can scale in seconds and keep costs aligned with usage.”

The infrastructure supports both cloud-native and traditional MPLS connections, giving customers flexibility in how they connect. “Now we’re able to meet the needs of all our customers, whether they prefer point-to-point cloud links or MPLS,” Fang explains.

To ensure compliance, Abaxx adopted AWS PrivateLink for secure VPC connectivity and AWS Control Tower for automated account setup, logging, and policy enforcement. “Security and compliance were non-negotiables,” says Fang. “AWS helped us embed guardrails into our design from the start, giving us confidence to launch with the right controls.”

Running natively on AWS, Abaxx Exchange’s technology department can prepare for new product launches in weeks instead of months, while meeting the stringent requirements of a licensed exchange and clearinghouse. “We’ve created a trusted, efficient, and resilient global commodities marketplace,” says Lim.

That impact was clear from day one. “After just a few days of trading one of our most liquid products, the compute instances powering our matching engine scaled up tenfold to meet demand,” says Fang. This rapid scaling was handled seamlessly on AWS, ensuring uninterrupted performance and demonstrating the platform’s ability to meet surging market activity without compromising speed or reliability.

The platform also eliminated the need for complex, point-to-point connections by using AWS’s out-of-the-box networking, while SaaS-based compliance tools integrated with AWS streamlined audits and reporting. Together, these capabilities helped Abaxx reduce infrastructure and compliance costs by about 35 percent, while ensuring flexibility and regulatory confidence.

In addition to handling peak demand, Abaxx streamlined technical onboarding for new participants. “We can create your account, complete all checks, and grant the proper entitlements in about 2 weeks on average, and within 4 weeks at the most for technical onboarding,” says Fang. “In comparison, onboarding with a traditional exchange can take months just to get a leased line approved.”

Looking ahead, Abaxx is exploring generative AI to drive further innovation, using Amazon Bedrock for visibility into exchange performance and evaluating Amazon Q Developer to automate its CI/CD pipeline. “We’ve been impressed with the simplicity of AWS from the start—not only in launching our infrastructure but also in evolving it with next-generation technologies like AI,” says Fang.