As AI applications move beyond answering prompts to running agents, writing code and powering physical systems, the economics of tokens is becoming a growing concern for developers and businesses.
Speaking at YourStory's DevSparks Hyderabad 2026, Jigar Halani, Senior Director of Enterprise Solutions Architecture & Engineering, NVIDIA South Asia, broke down the emerging ‘token economy’ into four parts: utility, demand, supply, and monetization.
His argument was simple: "When you waste too much, it is when the concept of saving comes into the picture."
Token consumption is already rising rapidly.
Halani said NVIDIA had initially budgeted to consume 16 trillion tokens across the company in 2026.
