In the midsummer of 2026, halfway through the first year of the 15th Five-Year Plan, a fierce competition around the "Token" economy has entered a critical phase. Following Guangdong's release of the nation's first provincial-level special policy on the token economy in June, Yangzhou became the first city in Jiangsu Province to introduce a dedicated Token voucher policy in July. Shortly after, in early August, Beijing's Yizhuang area launched its first systematic support policy focused on the entire token industry chain. Within just a few months, multiple regions have invested substantial financial resources, signaling a deeper industrial transformation where tokens are reshaping the valuation system of artificial intelligence and redefining industry growth curves.
The token is not just a value anchor in the intelligent era but also a "settlement unit" connecting technological supply with commercial demand, providing a quantifiable basis for business model implementation. At the China Development Forum's annual conference in March 2026, Liu Liehong, Director of the National Data Administration, officially translated "Token" into Chinese as "词元" (ci yuan). In early 2024, China's daily average token call volume was 100 billion; by the end of 2025, it surged to 100 trillion; and in March of this year, it exceeded 140 trillion, a more than 1,000-fold increase in just two years. With the rapid growth in token call volume, industrial dividends are accelerating, prompting multiple regions to intensify their layout of the token economy.
In June, Guangdong Province issued the "Several Measures on Unleashing the Value of Data Elements to Promote High-Quality Development of the Token Economy," marking the first provincial-level special policy on the token economy nationwide. In July, Yangzhou City introduced the "Implementation Opinions on Promoting Artificial Intelligence Token Vouchers (Token Vouchers) in Yangzhou City (Trial)," becoming the first city in Jiangsu Province to launch a dedicated Token voucher policy. In August, the "Several Measures on Supporting Token-Driven Intelligent Economy High-Quality Development in Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area (Trial)" was released, also known as the "Token Ten Measures," which is the first systematic support policy in Beijing focused on the entire token industry chain. In the same month, the Shantou Overseas Chinese Economic and Cultural Cooperation Experimental Zone Management Committee issued a public notice to solicit opinions on the draft "Several Measures on Promoting Innovation and Development of the Token Industry in Shantou City (Draft for Comments)."
A review of the token economy policies released nationwide reveals that "Token Vouchers" are a key common term. For example, Yangzhou's policy proposes to support Token vouchers based on a certain proportion of actual costs incurred, with a maximum annual claim amount of 500,000 yuan per applicant and a maximum annual financial support of 10 million yuan. In the Jiang'an District of Wuhan, the government will directly subsidize corporate token usage costs with 100 million yuan in Token vouchers annually, significantly reducing the operational burden on businesses. Shantou's draft policy clarifies the subsidy direction, proposing to issue "Token Vouchers" to support the research, iteration, and application of AI toys, AI micro-short dramas, and digital employee agents. For enterprises conducting business using Shantou's own digital infrastructure, the subsidy ratio will not exceed 40% of the actual computing power costs, with a maximum annual subsidy of 1 million yuan per company.
Zhu Keli, Founding Dean and Chief Expert of the Intelligent Economy at the National Research Institute for New Economy, stated that the token is the basic information unit for AI operation, providing a unified measurement standard for the intelligent economy. Previously, computing power, data, and models were difficult to price in a standardized way. Tokens integrate computing power supply, data value, and model capabilities into a new, measurable, and tradable production factor. This not only allows for observing the true health of the AI industry but also opens new paths for commercializing the sector. This new factor is also changing the valuation logic of the AI industry. In the past, companies were judged more by hardware assets, project orders, and R&D investment. Now, the market places greater emphasis on token output efficiency, actual consumption scale, and the revenue levels tokens can achieve in different scenarios, moving away from a purely hardware-based valuation.
The 15th Five-Year Plan and this year's government work report both emphasize "adapting to local conditions" when developing new productive forces. Zhu Keli believes that, as a fundamental measurement carrier for the AI industry, tokens link computing power, data, large models, and industry applications, providing a crucial lever for regions to cultivate new productive forces. However, the token economy is still in the early stages of exploration and development, with opportunities coexisting alongside real challenges. He Xinyu, an AI researcher at the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, further noted that the key for regional deployment is to leverage their own endowments. Areas with advantages in energy and computing power should enhance their ability to provide low-cost, high-efficiency tokens, while regions with strong industrial bases should focus on promoting AI's entry into real-world scenarios like manufacturing, healthcare, transportation, and consumption. At the same time, it is important to avoid simplifying the token economy into a new industry label. Local policies should shift from subsidizing supply to cultivating demand and application ecosystems, preventing redundant construction driven by the goal of "producing tokens for the sake of producing tokens."
Given the early stage of the token economy, regional development paths are undergoing differentiated exploration. In Beijing's Yizhuang area, "Token Factories" and "Full-Chain" capabilities are key focuses. Previously, Beijing's first token factory, Beijing No.1 Token Factory, and the city's first state-owned token factory, Jingsuan Token Factory, were officially launched in Yizhuang. The daily production capacity of Phase I of the Beijing No.1 Token Factory has exceeded 1.4 trillion tokens, with half of the tasks completed within 6 seconds and 90% of task response times within 10 seconds, keeping performance fluctuations within 20%. Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area treats tokens as a new production factor, vigorously promoting the construction of token factories to drive iterative upgrades across the entire chain. This industrial highland aims to build a complete token supply system spanning energy, chips, data, and models, systematically constructing a city-level intelligent foundation. The recently released "Token Ten Measures" are designed to seize industrial transformation opportunities, strengthen the high-performance computing power base, control the standardized token distribution and scheduling, and enrich diverse real-world scenario applications, forming a complete industrial loop of "factories supplying tokens, platforms distributing tokens, and communities using tokens." This is intended to create a new engine for high-quality development of the regional economy. Yizhuang's "Token Ten Measures" set a target to achieve an intelligent economy industry scale of 400 billion yuan by 2030. Leveraging the token as a new production factor, it aims to deepen the synergy between computing and electricity and optimize hardware, driving the total computing power in the area to exceed 100,000 P. It plans to build four high-standard 10,000-card token factories, increasing token output per kilowatt-hour to over six times the current level. The goal is to smooth the circulation of elements across the entire token industry chain, fully establish a systematic, standardized, and marketized token distribution and consumption infrastructure, and cultivate over 50 agent development collaboration platforms.
In Shantou, leveraging its five major advantages of policy, green electricity, submarine cables, overseas Chinese resources, and industry, the city is making continuous breakthroughs in the unique track of AI computing power going overseas. The Overseas Chinese Economic and Cultural Cooperation Experimental Zone has pioneered the nation's first full-chain compliant commercial closed loop for "Token going overseas," filling a gap in the field of compliant AI computing power export. Seizing the "going overseas" theme, Shantou's draft policy proposes to build a Token export hub, encouraging enterprises to use cross-border intelligent computing racks. At the same time, it supports the development of large models and agents. For enterprises that develop or purchase generative AI large models or agents for Token export business and achieve scale market operations, the policy offers a "Model Voucher" of up to 30% of the actual model procurement or R&D costs, with a maximum annual subsidy of 1 million yuan per company. Currently, Shantou provides over 15 billion Tokens daily to overseas markets, covering eight core export scenarios including AI toys, cross-border e-commerce, digital human customer service, AI short dramas, and overseas marketing content generation, establishing a unique industry identity. Building on this, Shantou's "Token Voucher" subsidy direction explicitly targets the research, iteration, and application of AI toys, AI micro-short dramas, and digital employee agents.
For local governments, the significance of developing the token economy is not just about building more computing centers, but about creating a closed loop between computing power, models, data, and application scenarios. This transforms infrastructure investment into intelligent services and industrial value, truly turning AI into real productive force. In the long term, the token economy is not a solo effort by a single city but requires coordinated guidance at the national level to form a regional division of labor. Segmented development in computing power production, scenario application, and digital trade is essential to fully unleash the potential of the token economy.
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