China rolls out 'token factories' to drive AI economy

BEIJING — As artificial intelligence applications gain momentum, China is accelerating the rollout of "token factories" in a bid to build an economic order suited to the AI era.

Every time a user prompts an AI model to generate code, images or video, tokens are consumed behind the scenes. In March, China adopted ciyuan as the official Chinese term for "token", giving its AI services a standard unit for measuring, settling and tracking usage — akin to how electricity is measured in kilowatt-hours.

In late September, Beijing unveiled an action plan to accelerate the development of the token economy for 2026-28. "This is the first provincial-level policy in China specifically dedicated to the token economy," said Zhang Jinrui, an official with the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology.