China Daily Token Usage Surpasses 140 Trillion

China's Daily Token Consumption Surpasses 140 Trillion: AI Enters the Era of Capability Billing

At the China Development Forum 2026, National Data Administration Director Liu Liehong officially designated Tokens as "ciyuan" (word-elements) and defined them as AI's "settlement unit." The data: daily consumption was 100 billion in early 2024, surged to 100 trillion by late 2025, and exceeded 140 trillion by March 2026 - a 1,000x increase in two years. Some model companies earned more in 20 days of 2026 than all of 2025.

Three paradigm shifts: Measurement (from licenses to callable, accountable intelligent service volumes); Application (140T tokens from long-chain tasks, not just chat - tool calls, document processing, multi-turn feedback); Industrial Narrative (tokens joining "bytes" and "kilowatt-hours" as economic units).

The naming "ciyuan" is precise in Chinese - more accurate than "word," closer to language processing than "token." It aids public understanding and policy alignment.

While the U.S. focuses on frontier model capabilities, China centers on measurement and settlement - reflecting different industrial logics. With the world's largest internet user base, China's conditions for large-scale AI commercialization are uniquely favorable.

Challenges: quality-quantity balance, enormous energy consumption, fair pricing mechanisms, and data security amid massive data flows. The transition from technical metric to economic settlement unit signals China's AI industry entering industrialization.