Telecom giants launch AI token services

China's telecom giants are racing to turn artificial intelligence into the country's next mass-market utility by selling tokens, the tiny units of computing consumption that power AI models, in a sign that the country's operators are trying to transform themselves from bandwidth providers into AI service brokers.

State-owned telecom carrier China Telecom announced on Sunday a series of trial token plans, offering consumers monthly AI usage packages starting at 9.9 yuan ($1.37) for 10 million tokens.

China Telecom's new plans cover both consumers and enterprise users. Small businesses and developers can purchase enterprise packages with up to 150 million monthly tokens for 39.9 yuan. The packages resemble mobile data plans, except the commodity being metered is AI computation instead of internet traffic.

In parallel, China Mobile launched a universal token service in Shanghai for consumer and office scenarios, allowing users to access different AI platforms under a single account and pay through phone bills.

The carrier partnered with Tencent Holdings to introduce an AI-native workspace platform targeting consumers and small businesses. The service offers 400,000 tokens for 1 yuan, with users able to switch between AI models under a unified pricing structure.

Wang Peng, a researcher of Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, said: "Chinese telecom operators are extending from selling connections to selling AI services. They are now competing to build integrated platforms combining computing power, AI models, intelligent agents and service gateways."

"Unlike AI startups, telecom operators do not necessarily compete on the lowest token prices. Their advantage lies in nationwide infrastructure, government-backed cloud networks and cybersecurity services," he said.

Xu Zhixin, director at the China Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team's software research division, said:"Cloud expansion is inevitable for operators. At its core, this is still resource-based supply. Chinese telecom operators are not simply trying to become an AI-era 'pickaxe seller'".

Telecom operators are embedding themselves deep into China's AI infrastructure stack. To make that model work, China Mobile is building a closed-loop AI ecosystem, aggregating AI models on one end while linking them to devices and applications on the other.

Its newly launched Mobile Model Management Platform (MoMA) connects not only China Mobile's in-house large language model, but also more than 300 mainstream AI models, including DeepSeek, Qwen, Doubao and GLM.

Using what the company calls a centralized token management system, MoMA dynamically routes user requests to different models depending on demand, helping reduce per-token costs by more than 30 percent while cutting computing resource usage by over 50 percent, according to the company.

Latest data from the National Data Administration showed that daily consumption of tokens had surpassed 140 trillion as of March, a more than 1,000-fold increase from the 100 billion recorded at the beginning of 2024 and over 40 percent higher than the 100 trillion recorded at the end of last year.

"The surge signals that China's AI industry is expanding quickly and evolving from basic chat functions to more sophisticated systems capable of decision-making and task execution," said Liu Liehong, head of the NDA.

chengyu@chinadaily.com.cn