China's Token Demand Shows Explosive Growth, Consumption Expected to Reach 10 Billion Quadrillion in 2026

en.Wedoany.com Reported - The "AI Infrastructure Development Research Report in the Agent Era (2026)" released by China Telecom Research Institute shows that as the focus of AI industry development shifts from large models and computing power competition to agent-scale deployment and application monetization, China's Token demand is showing explosive growth.

The report shows that AI is currently entering a new development stage with agents as the primary form. Agents make complex AI technology invisible and accessible to all, allowing the public and enterprises to complete complex full-process tasks with the help of agents without needing to master specialized technical skills.

Rao Shaoyang, Director of the Industry and Enterprise Strategy Research Institute at China Telecom Research Institute: China's annual Token consumption is expected to reach 10 billion quadrillion in 2026, and exceed 3500 billion quadrillion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of nearly 12 times.

Rao Shaoyang stated that from the perspective of computing power demand, the explosion of agents will drive China's computing power demand to continue growing at a high speed, with China's computing power demand expected to grow nearly 10 times annually on average over the next 2 to 3 years. From the perspective of demand structure, inference computing power demand will far exceed training computing power, and China's inference computing power market share is expected to reach 80% by 2029.

Qian Ling, Chief Expert of China Mobile Group: The group has established two top-level management bodies — the Computing Power Office and the Token Office — to coordinate the overall computing power construction and Token consumption development. Last year, we estimated our average daily Token output at approximately 3.4 trillion per day, and this year's capacity will certainly exceed last year's.

Data shows that in 2026, the AI capital expenditure of China's leading technology enterprises will approach 600 billion yuan, accounting for more than 10% of total social investment. International market research institutions predict that the number of active agents globally will reach nearly 80 million in 2026 and is expected to reach 2.216 billion by 2030.