SINGAPORE: The future of artificial intelligence may hinge on something surprisingly small.Not huge data centres or the latest wave of AI agents, but tiny units of data called tokens, which AI models use to process information and generate responses.Just like how electricity is measured in kilowatt-hours and mobile data in gigabytes, tokens are increasingly becoming the unit used to measure and price AI services.And as AI adoption accelerates worldwide, governments and tech companies have been paying closer attention.
China, in particular, has been rapidly expanding its AI infrastructure to support rising token consumption, observers say - underscoring how its AI sector is evolving into a full-fledged “token economy”. “There is a rising emphasis on the token economy in China,” said Qian Zilan, a research associate at the Oxford China Policy Lab - noting that Chinese state telecom giants have launched token services and subscriptions for both everyday users and developers.In the first of a two-part series, CNA explores the rise of tokens and how their explosive growth is shaping China’s AI future and creating new business opportunities, as well as security risks, for the world’s second-largest economy and beyond.
