Chinese tech giants drive AI tokens to become a new form of corporate currency

Foreign Media: Chinese tech giants are driving AI tokens to become a new type of "corporate currency."

Token (word unit) is the fundamental measurement unit for AI services, similar to kilowatt-hours for electricity. As companies like DeepSeek drastically cut model prices by 75%, China's AI industry has plunged into a fierce price war, accelerating large-scale enterprise adoption of AI.

Employees at companies such as ByteDance consume hundreds of millions or even nearly a billion tokens per month. Token usage has become a metric for measuring AI literacy, requiring employees to manage their token budgets just as they manage their time.

This token economy is expanding from within enterprises to broader ecosystems, with AI integration now permeating nearly every task.

Original article: toutiao.com/article/1871070470632512/

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