Global Daily Average Token Burn Increases Nearly 300-Fold in Two Years, China's Low-Cost Token Expedites Mining Power Expansion

March 3rd — Huawei ICT BG CEO Yang Chaobin delivered a keynote at the World Mobile Communications Conference (MWC) today, noting global daily token consumption has surged nearly 300x over the past two years. This has spurred AI apps like lifelike video and smart shopping, with over 30 million AI agents collaborating worldwide. Against this backdrop, surging global demand for China’s homegrown large-model APIs and token-driven computing expansion have sent electricity demand soaring. Yesterday, Elon Musk retweeted: “Electricity generation is the best single measure of industrial capacity.” China’s 2024 electricity output is roughly 100 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) — 40% more than the combined total of the U.S. and the EU’s 27 member states. China overtook the EU in generation around 2007 and the U.S. around 2010. Electricity generation not only reflects industrial strength but has become a core metric for computing power, directly capping AI development potential. Of AI’s three key scaling bottlenecks — chips, electricity, and transformers — a global data center power shortage will hit first. Despite ongoing U.S. tariff blockades, single physical blockades are growing ineffective. While the U.S. can disrupt logistics, it can’t easily restrict the steady global supply of tokens produced with low-cost electricity. Recently, the GLM Coding Plan — an AI programming subscription package under the Smart Thinking brand — sold out immediately upon launch, marking a rare sellout of a paid Chinese homegrown AI programming model. Kimi K2.5 also topped the call list of global large-model API aggregation platform OpenClaw within a week of release, outperforming giants like Gemini and Claude. China’s homegrown large models are leveraging low prices as a catalyst, paired with high performance for user retention, to deliver a cost-performance knockout in the AI market. Beyond the intensifying U.S.-China AI competition, token globalization has fostered mutual benefit and shared development — China’s low-cost tokens are easing U.S. inflation for the second time. In the 2000s, China’s globalization relied on cheap labor and textiles; today, it hinges on low-cost tokens. With a stable supply at just $0.1 per million tokens, these tokens act as an invisible subsidy supporting Silicon Valley’s application layer.