In March 2026, the National Data Administration officially designated the AI term “Token” as Ciyuan in Chinese. As of March 2026, China’s average daily Ciyuan (token) usage exceeded 140 trillion, representing a thousand-fold increase from the 100 billion recorded in early 2024, and an increase of over 40% in three months compared to the 100 trillion figure at the end of 2025. This milestone signals that China’s AI industry has moved beyond technological exploration and entered a new phase of large-scale commercial application.
A Ciyuan (token) is the smallest unit of information processed by large AI models and has become a key metric for measuring industrial value in the intelligent era. The explosive growth in Ciyuan usage stems from the deepening expansion of AI applications — from general-purpose dialogue to specialized vertical scenarios, with consumption rising significantly in complex tasks such as intelligent agents and industry-specific solutions.
