- Report claims China’s AI spending is now over 100 trillion tokens per day, up from 100 billion in just two years
- Business customers increasingly pay per use, not per seat
- Regular consumers are likely to keep their fixed, monthly rates
AI token consumption in China has increased “more than 1,000 times” in about two years, with data from the National Bureau of Statistics claiming that daily token consumption rose from 100 billion in early 2024 to 100 trillion by the end of 2025.
By March 2026, China was consuming about 140 trillion tokens per day, which SCMP illustrates as 100,000 tokens per person per day if every single Chinese citizen, including children, pensioners and non-workers, were to use AI.
“Today, the token economy is emerging,” said Yin Hao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences at a recent conference in Beijing. South China Morning Post reported.
AI consumption-based pricing could replace per-use pricing. seat
With users consuming more tokens than ever before, AI providers are now under pressure to cover the growing costs. Industry experts like Hao now believe that token-based pricing could soon replace traditional subscription models.
This could see subscribers pay a fee based on how much AI they actually use, rather than paying a flat monthly fee per use. user.
AI providers globally are also increasingly recognizing growing token usage and are adapting their pricing strategies to match, including OpenAI and Anthropic. Others, such as Zendesk, charge per meaningful result instead of per seat or per token.
But for now, these price changes primarily affect corporate customers who consume huge amounts of tokens. General consumers logging into their favorite chatbot, like ChatGPT or Gemini, are unlikely to be affected as compute becomes cheaper.
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