On May 17, 2026, CHINA TELECOM officially launched a nationwide trial commercial Token package, marking a shift in operator billing models from the traditional "gigabyte era" to the "Token pricing era" of the artificial intelligence age. Here, "Token" is the fundamental unit for measuring information processed by large AI models (typically, 1000 Tokens are roughly equivalent to 750 English words or 500-750 Chinese characters). CHINA TELECOM has packaged Tokens into standardized products, allowing individual, household, and enterprise users to directly purchase Token quotas for accessing various large AI model services. On the same day, CHINA MOBILE also commenced its Token business operations. Targeting general and office use scenarios, Shanghai Mobile introduced a universal Token service, enabling "one account for universal use, cross-platform access, and bill payment." In collaboration with Tencent, it launched an AI-native work platform, providing citizens and small-to-medium enterprises with easy access to AI capabilities at low cost and convenience—1 yuan for 400,000 Tokens. This model offers "one quota, one price, any model selection" and supports payment via phone bill. The transition by CHINA TELECOM and CHINA MOBILE from traditional "data traffic management" to "Token management" represents a fundamental paradigm shift from the "bit economy" to the "intelligence economy." This strategic transformation is profoundly restructuring the underlying business logic of these two operators, leading to a fundamental revaluation of their valuation frameworks. With the explosive growth of AI large models and intelligent agent applications, Tokens have become the smallest measurable and tradable unit in the AI era, akin to a "new currency" for this period. Data from the National Data Bureau shows that China's daily Token usage has surged from 100 billion in early 2024 to 140 trillion by March 2026, representing growth exceeding a thousandfold in two years. Under the Token business model, operator revenue growth is directly linked to the number of model calls. As precise reasoning in vertical scenarios and the widespread adoption of complex intelligent agent calls increase, high-value Tokens possess significant premium potential per unit, with consumption scale growing exponentially. Compared to the "high growth, high valuation" of companies like Nvidia and the "ecosystem stability valuation" of cloud providers, telecom operators are currently in a "low valuation + high transformation expectation" phase for early positioning. The realization of their valuation re-rating depends not merely on computational power accumulation but on the actual penetration rate of Token packages and the growth trajectory of Average Revenue Per User (ARPU). This highly elastic revenue characteristic is prompting the market's valuation system to shift from traditional Price-to-Earnings (P/E) ratios towards Price-to-Sales (P/S) ratios. This implies that the same AI Data Center (AIDC) asset can achieve higher value revaluation under the Token factory model. Token-related transactions involve relevant Hong Kong stocks: The three major telecom operators: CHINA MOBILE (00941), CHINA TELECOM (00728), CHINA UNICOM (00762). Cloud providers and computing power leasing: Alibaba-W (09988), Yuegangwan Holdings (01396), GDS Holdings-SW (09698), SUNeVision Holdings (01686), Kingsoft Cloud (03896), among others.
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