Here is a _tentative_ definition based on finitary unbiased monoidal categories – I make no claims of usefulness! An **infinitary unbiased monoidal category** consists of the following data: * An ordinary category $\mathcal{C}$. * For each small ordinal $\alpha$, a functor $T_\alpha : \mathcal{C}^\alpha \to \mathcal{C}$, which maps a $\alpha$-sequence $(A_0, A_1, \ldots)$ to $A_0 \otimes A_1 \otimes \cdots$. * A natural isomorphism $\textrm{id}_\mathcal{C} \Rightarrow T_1$. * For each partition $\alpha = \sum_{i < \gamma} \beta_i$, a natural isomorphism $$T_\gamma \circ (T_{\beta_0} \times T_{\beta_1} \times \cdots ) \Rightarrow T_\alpha$$ such that for each double partition $\alpha = \sum_{i < \gamma} \sum_{j < \delta_i} \beta_{i,j}$, where $\beta_i = \sum_{j < \delta_i} \beta_{i,j}$ and $\delta = \sum_{i < \gamma} \delta_i$, the two composites \begin{multline} T_\gamma \circ (T_{\delta_0} \circ (T_{\beta_{0,0}} \times T_{\beta_{0,1}} \times \cdots) \times T_{\delta_1} \circ (T_{\beta_{1,0}} \times T_{\beta_{1,1}} \times \cdots) \times \cdots) \newline \Rightarrow T_\gamma \circ (T_{\beta_0} \times T_{\beta_1} \times \cdots) \Rightarrow T_\alpha \end{multline} and \begin{multline} T_\gamma \circ (T_{\delta_0} \circ (T_{\beta_{0,0}} \times T_{\beta_{0,1}} \times \cdots) \times T_{\delta_1} \circ (T_{\beta_{1,0}} \times T_{\beta_{1,1}} \times \cdots) \times \cdots) \newline \Rightarrow T_\delta \circ ((T_{\beta_{0,0}} \times T_{\beta_{0,1}} \times \cdots) \times (T_{\beta_{1,0}} \times T_{\beta_{1,1}} \times \cdots) \times \cdots) \Rightarrow T_\alpha \end{multline} are equal, and the two composites $$T_\alpha \Rightarrow T_\alpha \circ (T_1 \times T_1 \times \cdots ) \Rightarrow T_\alpha$$ $$T_\alpha \Rightarrow T_1 \circ T_\alpha \Rightarrow T_\alpha$$ are the identity natural transformation on $T_\alpha$. An **infinitary lax monoidal category** is what we get if we replace "natural isomorphism" by "natural transformation" in the above. An **infinitary strict monoidal category** is what we get if we replace "natural isomorphism" by "identity". --- This is just a straightforward generalisation of the definition appearing in [Leinster, _Higher operads, higher categories_, §3.1]. The reason why this even makes sense is that ordinal addition is associative – if it weren't, we'd be stuck. This leads us to our first easy example: **Example.** The category of small ordinals (and monotone maps) is a infinitary strict monoidal category under ordinal addition. Less tautologically: **Example.** Any (co)complete category is an infinitary unbiased monoidal category under (co)products. (Though, in some sense we assumed this in our definition...) **Conjecture.** Martin's third example probably works if we assume that $X \otimes (-)$ preserves sequential colimits, and that the chosen morphisms $I \to X$ are sufficiently nice. First, by the Mac Lane–Kelly coherence theorem, we can make a finitary biased monoidal category into an unbiased one, and we can use the colimit construction to define the infinitary monoidal products. We use the assumption on $X \otimes (-)$ to prove that, e.g. $$A_0 \otimes (A_1 \otimes A_2 \otimes \cdots) \cong A_0 \otimes A_1 \otimes A_2 \otimes \cdots$$ The universal property of colimits _should_ be enough to ensure the coherence of the infinitary associators – but I haven't checked. We need to assume something about the choice of morphisms $I \to X$ so that $$I \otimes I \otimes I \otimes \cdots \cong I$$ holds. (For example, choosing a non-isomorphism for $I \to I$ is a bad idea!) **Non-example.** Take $\mathcal{C}$ to be the category of small ordinals, and take $T_\alpha$ to be ordinal addition for all finite ordinals $\alpha$, and $T_\alpha = 0$ for all infinite ordinals $\alpha$. This is not an infinitary unbiased monoidal category, because $$T_\omega \circ (T_1 \times T_1 \times T_1 \times T_0 \times T_0 \times \cdots ) \ncong T_3$$ and so we see that there is _some_ form of continuity required. Also, a reminder about a famous trick: **Remark.** Suppose we define infinitary monoids to be _discrete_ infinitary strict monoidal categories. There are non-trivial _small_ infinitary monoids: for example, take any complete small semilattice with $\sup$ as the monoid operation. However, any infinitary monoid that is also a group must be the trivial monoid: after all, for any element $x$, $$x^{-1} \cdot (x \cdot x \cdot x \cdot \cdots) = (x^{-1} \cdot x) \cdot (x \cdot x \cdot x \cdot \cdots) = x \cdot x \cdot x \cdot \cdots$$ and then cancel $x \cdot x \cdot x \cdot \cdots$ on both sides of the equation to obtain $x^{-1} = \textrm{id}$. **(EDIT) Non-example.** The tensor product of modules doesn't give an infinitary monoidal product. To be precise, if we define $$\textrm{Hom}_R (A_0 \otimes_R A_1 \otimes_R A_2 \otimes_R \cdots, B) \cong \textrm{Multi}_R(A_0, A_1, A_2, \ldots ; B)$$ where by $R$-multilinear we mean that $f(\ldots, r a, \ldots) = r f (\ldots, a, \ldots)$, then I don't see how $R \otimes_R R \otimes_R R \otimes_R \cdots$ can be isomorphic to $R$. (A multilinear map $R \times R \times R \times \cdots \to B$ is not necessarily determined by just what it does to $(1, 1, 1, \ldots)$, unlike the finite case.) --- Now, some closing remarks: * How do we define an "infinitary braided/symmetric monoidal category" as extra structure on top of an infinitary unbiased monoidal category? The trouble is that a permutation of an infinite ordinal can change its order type (e.g. $\omega + \omega_1 = \omega_1 \ne \omega_1 + \omega$)... but this probably isn't a big problem. It seems to me that the morally correct way of defining an "infinitary unbiased symmetric monoidal category" would define a functor $S_\kappa : \mathcal{C}^\kappa / \textrm{Sym}(\kappa) \to \mathcal{C}$ for each cardinal $\kappa$ and some natural isomorphisms to the various $T_\alpha$. * Is there a sensible notion of an "infinitary biased monoidal category"? We would need to define $T_\alpha$ for at least $\alpha = 0$, $\alpha = 2$, and every infinite regular ordinal $\alpha$. This is still a large amount of data! For the finitary fragment we can adopt the same coherence axioms, but I don't know what the coherence axioms for the infinitary fragment ought to be. There will have to be some new ones that don't show up in the finitary fragment: For example, we would need an axiom like $$I \otimes I \otimes I \otimes \cdots \cong I$$ for the monoidal unit $I$ – because inductively applying the left unitor can never delete infinitely many copies of $I$; or we could instead make $$A_0 \otimes A_1 \otimes \cdots \otimes A_n \otimes I \otimes I \otimes I \otimes \cdots \cong A_0 \otimes A_1 \otimes \cdots \otimes A_n$$ into an axiom, because we can't even apply the right unitor here!