Daily token surge heralds rapid commercialization of China's AI

China's rapid push to build high-quality data sets is accelerating the commercialization of artificial intelligence, with daily token usage surging more than 1,000-fold in two years, a senior official said on Tuesday.

Liu Liehong, head of the National Data Administration, said at a State Council press conference that the government is prioritizing the development of data resources to underpin AI innovation, adopting a strategy that "wherever AI develops, high-quality data sets will follow".

China has moved to address fragmentation in its data ecosystem by coordinating 26 government departments to select 104 pilot cases, building what Liu described as a collaborative framework led by key industry players and supported by multi-stakeholder participation, joint research and shared access.

The effort has yielded early results. By the end of 2025, China had built more than 100,000 high-quality data sets nationwide, forming the backbone of its fast-expanding AI industry.

Speaking at the China Development Forum 2026 on Monday, Liu said the explosive growth in token usage — the smallest unit of data processed by large AI models – signaled a tipping point for commercialization.

Daily token consumption in China climbed from 100 billion at the start of 2024 to 100 trillion by the end of 2025, and has exceeded 140 trillion as of this month, he said.

"Tokens are not only the value anchor of the intelligent era, but also the settlement unit linking technological supply with commercial demand," Liu said, describing them as a quantifiable basis for AI business models.

The surge reflects both rising demand for AI services and the emergence of a pricing system built around token-based billing, which allows companies to measure, price and trade computing and data usage more precisely.

Liu added that some AI model firms have recently generated more revenue in just 20 days than in the whole of 2025, highlighting the speed at which monetization models are evolving.