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Token Economy
2026-09-21 12:27:12

Tencent Research Institute says tokens are becoming the base unit of the AI economy

Tencent Research Institute argues in the introduction to its new book Token Economy that a token should be understood not as storage, compute cycles, or data transfer, but as a unit for machine-produced intellectual work. The piece places tokens alongside earlier economic units such as the bushel, the barrel, the kilowatt-hour, and the bit, arguing that major shifts in economic organization often follow the arrival of a new standard of measurement. The article says token-based AI services have already moved beyond theory. It cites OpenAI’s disclosure in March 2026 that its API was processing 15 billion tokens per minute, up from 6 billion per minute in October 2025. It also points to figures released by China’s National Data Administration showing daily token calls in China rising from about 100 billion in early 2024 to more than 140 trillion by March 2026. IDC, according to the article, reported in April 2026 that global AI infrastructure spending reached $318 billion in 2025, up from $153 billion in 2024. The text also argues that token markets strain standard economic frameworks. It says the same number of tokens can create sharply different economic value depending on the task, while prices are falling quickly even as total spending rises. The article describes this as a version of the Jevons paradox and says existing tools for procurement, pricing, ROI analysis, trade, and regulation need to be recalibrated for a market where machine intelligence is bought and sold as a metered service.

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