# Market Participants

### Overview

The Grid is a real-time spot market for AI inference where three types of participants interact: Consumers (developers and companies buying inference), Suppliers (infrastructure providers and model labs selling inference capacity), and The Grid Exchange itself (the operator that maintains the order book, enforces Instrument specifications, and publishes market prices). \
\
As the ecosystem matures, additional roles - Inference Retailers, Capacity Aggregators, and Execution Brokers - will emerge to serve more specialized needs.<br>

* **Consumers**

  Developers, startups, and enterprises that:

  * Purchase Units of an Instrument.
  * Consume them through the Consumption API.
  * Care about predictable quality and cost.
* **Suppliers**

  Inference providers, model labs, and infrastructure operators that:

  * Register conforming models against Instruments.
  * Expose capacity and sell Units on the exchange.
  * Deliver inference when calls are routed to them.
* **The Grid Market**

  The exchange operator that:

  * Operates the CLOB and scheduled Sweeps.
  * Maintains Instrument specifications and eligibility rosters.
  * Publishes prices and reference indexes.

### Future participants

As the ecosystem matures, additional roles such as Inference Retailers, Capacity Aggregators, Benchmark Providers, and Execution Brokers will emerge.&#x20;

{% hint style="info" %}
Currently, The Grid is serving as a supplier on the platform, and several other suppliers will be onboarded in due course. If youre interested in becoming a supplier, please reach out to us at <support@thegrid.ai>
{% endhint %}


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