Token Photo: VCG

The day may have arrived when buying tokens is as easy and convenient as purchasing electricity, water, or mobile data. Shares of China's three major telecom operators edged up for the second consecutive day on Tuesday, after they launched "token packages" tailored for individual consumers. 

The rollout of the new token plans adds to a growing trend among Chinese technology companies to step up efforts to build basic computing infrastructure, which observers said will strengthen China's competitive advantage across the entire artificial intelligence (AI) industrial chain, where computing power plays a critical role. 

Highlighting positive market reactions to this trend, on Tuesday, shares of China Telecom jumped 4.4 percent, China Mobile rose 0.65 percent, and China Unicom gained 0.61 percent. It was the second consecutive day of gains for the three telecom providers' A-shares. 

China Mobile confirmed to the Global Times on Tuesday that its Shanghai branch has just launched a general token service, under which consumers can purchase 400,000 tokens for just 1 yuan ($0.15) and pay as part of their phone bills. The tokens are compatible with multiple AI models, enabling a new paradigm for AI-powered office work and daily life. 

In April, China Mobile's Beijing branch launched a computing power token package, under which one-time packages start at just 5.99 yuan for customers who already subscribe to its cloud personal computer service, the Global Times learned. The monthly package is priced at 24.99 yuan, offering 10 million tokens, which is well-suited for daily high-frequency AI usage.

On Sunday, China Telecom introduced trial commercial token packages for individual users and developers, with monthly fees of between 9.9 yuan and 299.9 yuan depending on the user type. China Unicom launched a similar token plan in recent days.

According to the definition of the National Data Administration, a token is the smallest unit for processing information in large-language AI models. It may consist of a single Chinese character, a punctuation mark, or a segment of a word.

Chinese observers characterized the rollout of token packages as a direct response to the surging demand for computing power, driven by the explosive growth of AI applications such as AI agents, AI-assisted coding, and multimodal content generation. 

Ma Jihua, a veteran Chinese technology industry analyst, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the frequent, massive interactions between users and large-language AI models have been prompting market players to offer more standardized, stable, and price-competitive token packages. 

"Riding the AI boom, Chinese telecom operators have built massive data centers and intelligent computing facilities. In the past, those companies primarily acted as intermediaries, supplying computing power to AI companies. Now, as AI increasingly penetrates everyday life, these operators are targeting individual users directly," Ma explained, while noting that the token business is still in its early stage. 

Observers pointed out that Chinese telecom operators' token packages are priced significantly lower than those of overseas cloud providers, thanks to a combination of lower electricity costs, enormous market scale, and a highly integrated supply chain.

"The token, or in general computing power, serves as the cornerstone of the AI economy, and it will become a fundamental resource, just like water, electricity, and mobile data in the era of AI," Ma said. He noted that Chinese companies' forward-looking deployment in the token industry will cement the country's leading position in the global AI race.

China's daily average token usage volume stood at 100 billion in early 2024, and it surged to 100 trillion as of the end of 2025, and further exceeded 140 trillion in March this year, according to statistics from the National Data Administration.