Amidst the AI boom, a concept is gradually gaining prominence—Token. It serves as the evaluation standard for large model call volumes on leaderboards and the billing unit for large model vendors' sales packages.
At the China Development Forum 2026 Annual Conference, Liu Liehong, director of the National Data Administration, stated that Token, or &#34;Ciyuan,&#34; is not only the anchor of value in the intelligent era but also the &#34;settlement unit&#34; connecting technical supply with commercial demand, providing quantifiable possibilities for the implementation of business models; it also provides an official Chinese translation for Token: &#34;Ciyuan.&#34;
<h2>China's Daily Token Call Volume Exceeds 140 Trillion, an Increase of Over 40% from the End of 2025</h2>
Liu Liehong introduced that by the end of 2025, over 100,000 high-quality datasets had been built nationwide. By March of this year, China's daily average Token (Ciyuan) call volume exceeded 140 trillion, an increase of more than 1,000 times from 100 billion at the end of 2024. Compared to 100 trillion at the end of 2025, it has grown by more than 40% in three months.
Liu Liehong stated that the substantial increase in daily average Token call volume fully demonstrates that China's artificial intelligence development has entered a rapid growth phase, with deepening application scenarios. From conversational abilities to intelligent agents capable of decision-making and execution, China's artificial intelligence industry competitiveness has significantly strengthened. This also signifies a large increase in dataset supply, the continuous release of the value of data elements, and the entry of data elements empowering AI innovation and development into a virtuous cycle.
According to the introduction, in the next step, the National Data Administration will be guided by scenario needs to accelerate pilot initiatives, create high-quality datasets that are technically feasible, practical, convenient, and quality-assured, thereby achieving quantitative and qualitative improvements in supply.
<h2>What is a Token?</h2>
In the world of AI, a Token is the smallest unit of measurement for information processing. Whether it's a user's query or a piece of code generated by AI, it must ultimately be broken down into Tokens for computation. As such, Token call volume has become a key indicator for measuring the activity and industrial value of AI models. A higher Token call volume implies greater model usage and larger actual value creation.
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At the China Development Forum 2026 Annual Conference, Liu Liehong, director of the National Data Administration, announced that the Chinese name for Token is "Ciyuan." Token is the basic unit of measurement for AI models, with daily average call volumes exceeding 140 trillion, an increase of over 40% from the end of 2025. This growth indicates that China's artificial intelligence development has entered a rapid growth phase, and the value of data elements is continuously being released. The National Data Administration will accelerate the construction of high-quality datasets to meet market demand

Token's Chinese Name Decided: "Ciyuan"