China Launches Token Economy to Standardize AI Usage

The Government of China is implementing a token economy to standardize the measurement, settlement, and trading of artificial intelligence usage. By treating tokens as an economic factor similar to electricity, the initiative aims to create a systematic support framework for AI under the State Council's AI Plus guidelines.

In late September, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology unveiled an action plan for 2026-2028 to develop token factories. These facilities integrate chips, data, and models to produce tokens directly, eliminating the requirement for customers to deploy their own models. The first such factory, located in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, currently produces up to 1.4 trillion tokens daily.

Regional strategies are expanding the ecosystem beyond the capital. Inner Mongolia has launched a token trading platform using green computing resources, while Anhui Province is encouraging banks to offer token loans. In Nanning, officials are exploring token services specifically for ASEAN markets. According to the National Data Administration, average daily token calls exceeded 500 trillion by June, with more than half of that activity concentrated in Beijing.

Liu Yong, president of the Zhongguancun Internet Finance Institute, noted that the logic of competition has shifted from traffic and user attention to the quality and efficiency of outputting effective tokens.