China's Daily Token Call Volume Surges Over 1,000-Fold in Two Years
China's average daily token call volume has skyrocketed from approximately 100 billion in early 2024 to 140 trillion by March 2026, marking an increase of over a thousandfold, according to Wei Liang, Vice President of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology. This surge reflects the rapid development of the "token economy," where tokens, known as "ciyuan" in Chinese, serve as a crucial unit for processing information and measuring model call costs in large AI models.
The rise in token call volume is indicative of the growing demand for AI computing power, driven by the widespread adoption of intelligent agents. These agents, through multiple rounds of model calls and resource consumption, are fostering new economic models centered around token metering, scheduling, pricing, and trading. This trend highlights the transformative impact of AI on China's economic landscape.
