China rolls out 'token factories' to drive AI economy
Last month, Beijing unveiled an action plan to accelerate development of system for 2026-28
In the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, the Chinese capital's first token factory is now in operation, with a daily capacity of up to 1.4 trillion tokens in its first phase.
The plan also designates token distribution platforms as part of the city's new infrastructure layout, exploring market-based pricing and circulation mechanisms for tokens, so that tokens can truly be measured and traded as an economic entity.
On the application side, the new policy encourages the development of general-purpose and industry-specific AI agents, bringing token capabilities into sectors such as industry, research and government matters.
Chen Guangming, an official with the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology, said token consumption is currently growing fastest in the areas of AI-generated content and programming, and more vertical industries will become potential growth drivers for token consumption going forward.
"In the internet era, competition was all about traffic and user attention. In the AI era, the logic has shifted — what matters now is the quality and efficiency of outputting effective tokens," Liu said, adding that the shift from a traffic economy, one built on user visits and attention, to a token economy represents a new trend in China's economic development.
The National Data Administration said that by June, the country's average daily token calls had surpassed 500 trillion. "More than half of those calls were made in Beijing," Zhang said, adding that the city has so far registered 242 large models for public use.
Beijing's early push is aimed not merely at building a series of token factories, but at exploring institutional rules suited to the token economy, making the city a testing ground for the industry's development, local authorities said.
Elsewhere, localities across China are developing token economies tailored to their own strengths as part of efforts to implement the State Council's guidelines on the "AI Plus" initiative.
The guidelines aim to build a comprehensive support framework for AI covering models, data, computing power, applications, open-source development, talent, policies and regulations, and security.
