Tech Leaders Discuss Token: Huang Renxun Suggests Including It in Engineers' Salaries, Altman Says It May Replace Universal Basic Income

Token has become a buzzword in the AI circle recently, with almost all tech company CEOs discussing it. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang proposed at the GTC 2026 conference that Token could even be part of engineers' salaries—job seekers in Silicon Valley already ask how many Tokens they can get for a position, as it boosts productivity.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has a more radical idea: In the future, "universal basic computing power" may replace traditional universal basic income, where everyone gets a share of GPT-7's computing power to use, resell, or donate. He also said AI-generated intelligence will become a basic resource like water or electricity, and model companies' businesses are essentially selling Tokens.

However, cost issues have emerged: Enterprises' Token consumption has surged, with one company's costs tripling since November 2025, and AWS inference fees etc. reaching millions. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also warned that if AI fails to bring real improvements in healthcare and other fields, society may no longer accept its high energy consumption.