A New Commodity.

May 17th, World Telecommunication Day.

On this day, China Telecom launched a trial nationwide commercial Token package. Individual users can get 10 million Tokens for as low as 9.9 RMB. Shanghai Mobile offers 400,000 Tokens for 1 RMB, while Beijing Mobile provides a monthly package of 10 million Tokens for 24.99 RMB. China Unicom is also active, with Shanghai offering 30 million free Tokens to OPC customers for testing, and Hubei Unicom bundling Tokens with communication and broadband services.

As of today, all three operators have launched Token packages. This means that, following phone bills, text messaging fees, and data charges, a new line item is set to appear on the monthly communication bills of Chinese consumers.

For someone who has worked in the telecommunications industry for 26 years, the significance of this development far exceeds mere pricing innovation. The last time operators collectively adjusted their billing units was during the 4G era, transitioning from call minutes and text message counts to data megabytes—and now to Tokens. However, Tokens are different from these previous metrics. Minutes sold connectivity, data sold bandwidth, but Tokens sell 'intelligence.'

When computing power is packaged like utilities and billed monthly through phone charges, we are witnessing a fundamental shift at the infrastructure level.

01

Why Token Has Become a Hard Currency

Let's examine the three operators' packages.

China Telecom has made the boldest move, implementing unified pricing at the group level nationwide. Both individuals and developers, as well as enterprises, have three tiered options. China Telecom's packages integrate its proprietary Starlight Large Model and ecosystem models like DeepSeek V3.2, suitable for daily office assistance, copywriting, learning, and creative tasks.

China Mobile adopts a more flexible approach, advancing province by province. Shanghai Mobile is the most aggressive, offering 400,000 Tokens for 1 RMB, supporting phone bill payments and cross-platform use, and partnering with Tencent to launch an AI-native workstation. Beijing Mobile offers a monthly package of 10 million Tokens for 24.99 RMB, with additional discounts for existing customers, and a minimum price of 5.99 RMB for standalone packages. Jiangsu Mobile even introduced a 5 RMB package for 2.5 million Tokens, setting the bar extremely low for first-time users.

China Unicom takes a different path. Hubei Unicom launched three tiers of Token Plans and two tiers of Coding Plans in late April, integrating communication, broadband, and cloud desktop services. Shanghai Unicom directly targets solo entrepreneurs, offering 30 million Tokens during the testing period. Sichuan Unicom introduced a 'Family Token Package,' combining a fixed monthly fee with Unicom's cloud desktop and WorkBuddy AI agent, aiming to solve the pain point of 'difficulty in use' with a 'plug-and-play' solution.

A simple comparison: China Telecom's lowest individual tier costs 0.99 RMB per million Tokens, likely the cheapest among the group's unified pricing; Shanghai Mobile offers 400,000 Tokens for 1 RMB, equivalent to 2.5 RMB per million Tokens; Shanghai Unicom's OPC customer renewal price is 1 RMB per million Tokens.

In terms of unit price, China Telecom is the most aggressive, but China Mobile excels in flexibility, allowing pay-as-you-go without monthly commitments. China Unicom differentiates itself through scenario integration, bundling Tokens with cloud desktops and AI agents, selling 'plug-and-play' solutions.

However, if we assume the operators are simply engaging in a price war, we are missing the bigger picture. At this stage, their pricing strategy resembles the early days of data traffic monetization, aiming to 'cultivate user habits.'

After discussing the packages, we must return to a fundamental question: What exactly is a Token?

Strictly speaking, a Token is the smallest computational unit for processing text, images, and speech by large models. When you ask, 'What's the weather like in Beijing today?' AI breaks it down into five or six Tokens for processing. Every character in its response is also a Token.

Over the past two years, Token circulation on the Chinese internet has experienced exponential growth in the literal sense. According to the National Data Bureau, China's daily average Token usage was 100 billion in early 2024, surging to 100 trillion by the end of 2025, and exceeding 140 trillion by March 2026—a thousandfold increase in two years.

In March of this year, the National Committee for Terms in Sciences and Technologies officially designated 'Token' as the standard Chinese translation for this concept. When a technical term requires a national-level conference for naming, it indicates that it has evolved from an internal billing unit among large model providers to a society-wide consumable—not data traffic, not bandwidth, but a brand new 'basic resource' (new basic resource).

Jensen Huang clarified this point at the GTC conference, stating, 'Token is the new commodity.' The term 'commodity' is not used lightly; it implies standardization, gradability, and large-scale tradability.

At GTC, NVIDIA introduced a five-tier Token pricing system, ranging from a free tier to an ultra-high-speed tier costing 150 USD per million Tokens, with pricing based on speed and context length. This resembles what the telecom industry has long attempted but failed to achieve—differentiated pricing for data traffic based on quality. Huang has brought this concept to fruition.

Also in March, China's large model industry underwent a dramatic price revaluation. Tencent Cloud led the way by raising prices for its Hunyuan Large Model, with the core model's input price increasing from 0.0008 RMB to 0.004505 RMB per thousand Tokens—a 463% hike. Alibaba Cloud and Baidu Intelligent Cloud followed suit.

By May, the pressure had shifted to consumers. ByteDance's Doubao quietly introduced three tiers of paid subscriptions on the App Store. By then, Doubao's daily Token usage had surpassed 120 trillion, a thousandfold increase since its launch. Zheshang Securities estimates that ByteDance's 2025 capital expenditures will reach approximately 160 billion RMB, with the majority allocated to AI computing power procurement.

DeepSeek, which opened for commercial use, took a different approach, setting its V4-Flash input price at 1 RMB per million Tokens and as low as 0.2 RMB after cache hits, operating near cost. Nevertheless, the industry's pricing curve has clearly shifted upward.

In other words, just as the market transitions from 'all-you-can-eat' to 'pay-as-you-go,' operators have entered the fray with phone bills.

02

The Operators' Calculations

The simultaneous launch of Token packages by the three major operators is no coincidence.

Traditional communication services have hit a ceiling. Data traffic prices continue to decline, while voice and text messaging services have been shrinking for years. Operators have long faced the anxiety of being reduced to mere 'pipes'—building networks and transmitting data, only to see internet companies reap the profits.

Tokens offer them an opportunity to turn over (turn the tables).

First, they possess ready-made computing power infrastructure. China Mobile's total intelligent computing capacity reaches 92.5 EFLOPS, China Telecom's proprietary and accessed intelligent computing capacity stands at 91 EFLOPS, and China Unicom's reaches 45 EFLOPS. Together, they control nearly 50% of the IDC market. By 2025, China Mobile's computing power service revenue will reach 89.8 billion RMB, up 11.1% year-on-year, accounting for 20.2% of its main business revenue. Mobile has officially listed 'computing power services' alongside 'communication services' as two of its three primary businesses.

Second, they have unparalleled distribution channels. A single mobile number, tied to a phone bill, represents a payment system covering 1.7 billion users. For any large model provider, this is a dream distribution channel. Users don't need to register cloud platform accounts, link credit cards, or understand APIs. They simply open the operator's app, select a package, pay, and start using AI. This 'low barrier to entry' is something internet giants cannot replicate, no matter how much money they spend.

Third, they control the network. AI inference demands far lower latency than ordinary cloud computing, favoring providers with data centers closer to users. Operators' tens of thousands of edge data centers nationwide constitute a natural advantage. Galaxy Securities reports that operators are transitioning from 'traffic pipe providers' to 'computing power service providers' by leveraging their national backbone networks, distributed computing nodes, and cloud-network integration capabilities.

However, operators also have inherent weaknesses compared to internet giants: they are further removed from user application scenarios. Experts point out that while operators struggle to compete with internet companies in flexibility for consumer markets, they hold advantages in security, controllability, algorithm responsiveness, and tool integration for government and enterprise clients, especially sensitive departments.

Thus, the current product strategies of all three operators reflect a 'B2B-first' approach.

Pan Helin, an expert from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, elaborates: Government and enterprise clients, particularly state-owned enterprises, have comprehensive demands for security, controllability, algorithm responsiveness, and tool integration—areas where operators excel.

China Unicom's proposed new model of 'Agent + Token + AI Cloud' computing power operations, China Telecom's intelligent cloud system construction, and China Mobile's strategic path toward upgrading into a technology service enterprise all point to the same goal: not to compete for consumer-facing AI applications but to serve as infrastructure for the entire AI industry.

03

The Entire Industry is Repricing Tokens

Operators are not the only ones eyeing the Token business. Broadening the perspective, the entire AI industry chain recalibrated its relationship with Tokens in the first half of 2026.

Alibaba established the Alibaba Token Hub business group this year, with CEO Wu Yongming personally leading it, integrating the Tongyi Laboratory, MaaS business line, and Qianwen Business Department. The core objective is nine words: 'create Tokens, deliver Tokens, apply Tokens.' Meanwhile, Jack Ma brought Alibaba and Ant Group's core management to Yungu School for closed-door discussions on AI challenges and opportunities, after which he began frequently visiting various campuses. These signals are hard to ignore when viewed together.

Zhipu AI raised its API prices in the first quarter, yet usage volume continued to grow—a 'highly unusual' phenomenon in an industry embroiled in price wars. The ability to raise prices and still increase volume suggests that pricing power is consolidating in high-value scenarios.

ByteDance's Volcano Engine announced commercial pricing for its Seedance 2.0 video generation model in March, with each 15-second video costing approximately 15 RMB. Officials stated that enterprise clients now care less about single-Token costs and more about the 'overall cost of completing tasks end-to-end.'

Viewed alongside operators' Token businesses, Alibaba aims to dominate the entire Token supply chain, ByteDance seeks to monetize consumer traffic, and operators aim to transform computing power into new revenue streams. Their starting points and paths differ, but their endpoints converge on one word: Token.

At this stage, cooperation between operators, large model providers, and cloud service providers far outweighs competition.

Operators integrate AI vendors' models into their package systems, effectively acting as mass distributors for AI providers. For users, the most immediate benefit is that 'using AI becomes simpler'—no need to research which platform is cheaper, which model is stronger, or how Tokens are billed. Users purchase a package, and the operator handles everything behind the scenes.

However, the long-term viability of this model hinges on resolving several issues. Experts point out a practical problem: Token billing mechanisms remain a 'black box,' with users lacking transparency into single-call consumption. Clarity and cost reduction are critical for service growth.

In simple terms, no unified standards exist for Token measurement, pricing, or circulation. The three operators have different pricing systems, while large model and cloud providers define Tokens inconsistently. A user subscribing to a package may experience vastly different consumption rates across models. The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology is working on standardization, but true uniformity remains distant.

Additionally, downstream applications are far from mature. Most users' current demand for Tokens differs significantly from their past demand for texts and data. While texts and data were essential, it's unclear whether Tokens are equally indispensable.

From a longer-term perspective, the success of operators' Token packages depends on several variables:

1. Whether AI applications can penetrate ordinary users' daily lives, like mobile payments and short videos did. If Tokens remain consumables (consumables) for developers and power users, their market ceiling will be low.

2. Whether Token billing systems can become transparent and stable, enabling users to truly adopt a 'pay-for-what-you-use' mindset.

3. Whether operators can sustain investments in computing power infrastructure, rather than treating Token packages as one-time pricing innovations.

Regardless of the outcome, operators' move may signify the positioning of 'computing power' as a fundamental service—a story more profound than 5G commercialization. When all three major operators uniformly place Tokens on their shelves, it indicates that this has shifted from a strategy of individual tech giants to an industry-wide consensus.

The communication industry is transitioning from transporting information to producing intelligence. For users, when new things arrive, it's best to observe, experiment, and then decide whether to pay. There's no need to rush; let the bullets fly for a while.

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