China's daily AI token usage surges 1000 times, signaling a new era of agent economy

China's AI industry is seeing explosive growth. Official data shows that as of March 2026, daily token usage in China has hit 140 trillion, a 1,000-fold jump from about 100 billion in early 2024. Tokens are the basic unit for AI models to process info and measure usage. This growth is a key sign of the industry's health.

The data was shared by Wei Liang from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology. The main driver is the widespread use of AI agents. One user request may trigger many model calls, pushing up demand for computing power.

A new "Token economy" is emerging, covering how tokens are measured, scheduled, priced, and traded. Experts say this shows AI is moving from testing to building real-world ecosystems.