<div id="readability-page-1">China is stepping up construction of a “national computing network”, aiming to turn artificial intelligence infrastructure into a public utility as token usage surges and telecoms operators seek new growth engines beyond mobile data and phone bills. The push was highlighted by national broadcaster China Central Television and state-backed Xinhua news agency, which described the network as a “computing version of the state grid”. The reports likened tokens – the basic units of text, code and other information processed by AI models – to mobile data, framing them as the measurable commodity of the AI era. Daily token calls in China exceeded 140 trillion in March, more than 1,000 times the level at the start of 2024, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics. The reports said rising AI model costs began to weigh on developers and businesses, echoing the early days of the mobile internet when slow speeds and high charges later gave way to cheap, accessible mobile data after the roll-out of 4G and 5G networks. The framing underscores how Beijing presents AI infrastructure. Rather than treating computing power as a resource controlled by cloud providers or individual data centres, policymakers increasingly positioned it as a national infrastructure system, alongside water networks, power grids, next-generation communications, urban underground pipelines, and logistics systems – priorities collectively known as the “six networks”.  Earlier this month, the State Council called for stronger planning and construction of the six networks. The National Development and Reform Commission said investment in the six networks and related areas was expected to exceed 7 trillion yuan (US$1 trillion) this year. Official documents for the 15th five-year plan period also called for a “multilayered computing infrastructure system” and a “national integrated computing power network”, language that pointed to Beijing’s ambition to connect data centres, supercomputing facilities and intelligent-computing clusters across regions. China’s major telecoms carriers are moving quickly to align with the shift. With traditional communications revenue under pressure, they are betting on cloud, computing power and AI services – packaging tokens as the next mass-market commodity. Shanghai Telecom on Friday launched token-based AI computing packages, including a pay-as-you-go plan in which 1 yuan bought 250,000 quota points, roughly equivalent to 250,000 input tokens on Kimi-K2.5, according to local reports. Users could access more than 30 mainstream large models through standard application programming interfaces and pay through their phone bills, the company said. Shanghai Unicom has also introduced token services for one-person companies, offering free test quotas and discounts on Token Plan and Coding Plan products. Provincial branches of China Mobile and China Unicom have rolled out similar packages, in some cases bundling AI tokens with broadband, cloud desktops and developer tools.</div>

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<p>China is enhancing its national computing network to support AI infrastructure as token usage surges, likening it to a public utility. Daily token calls exceeded 140 trillion in March, prompting telecoms to pivot from traditional revenue sources. The State Council plans to invest over 7 trillion yuan in this infrastructure, aiming to connect data centers and supercomputing facilities. Telecoms like Shanghai Telecom and Unicom are launching token-based AI services, offering packages that integrate AI tokens with existing services.</p>

China ramps up building national computing power network as AI token use surges