China’s major telecommunications companies are moving beyond traditional cellular data plans to offer AI token packages to consumers and businesses. This strategic shift aims to monetize the growing artificial intelligence boom by providing units of computational processing for large language models (LLMs). China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom have all unveiled token-based service plans and ecosystem partnerships, signaling their entry into the “token economy.” These plans function like prepaid data packages, but instead of internet traffic, they meter AI computation.

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China's major telecommunications companies are moving beyond traditional cellular data plans to offer AI token packages to consumers and businesses. This strategic shift aims to monetize the growing artificial intelligence boom by providing units of computational processing for large language models (LLMs). China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom have all unveiled token-based service plans and ecosystem partnerships, signaling their entry into the "token economy." These plans function like prepaid data packages, but instead of internet traffic, they meter AI computation.

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China’s leading telecommunications companies, including China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom, are transitioning their business models to offer AI token plans, marking a significant shift from selling traditional cellular data. This move, widely observed in May 2026, positions these carriers to capitalize on the burgeoning artificial intelligence market. AI tokens are defined as the basic units of text, code, or data that an AI model processes or generates, effectively becoming a new form of metered consumption akin to mobile data.

China Telecom has been particularly proactive, launching nationwide trial commercial token packages on May 17, 2026. Their consumer plans begin at 9.9 yuan (approximately US$1.40) per month for 10 million tokens, scaling up to 49.9 yuan for 80 million tokens. For developers and small businesses, professional-tier plans are available, ranging from 39.9 yuan to 299.9 yuan monthly, offering up to 150 million tokens. China Telecom is bundling these plans with its proprietary TeleChat AI model and integrating with third-party systems like Zhipu AI’s GLM-5 and DeepSeek-V3.2.

China Mobile and China Unicom are also actively participating, often through regional pilots and specialized services. For instance, Shanghai Mobile, in collaboration with Tencent, introduced an AI-native workspace platform offering 400,000 tokens for 1 yuan. China Unicom is focusing on AI-driven usage scenarios, with its Shanghai branch offering a free trial of 30 million tokens for “one-person company” (OPC) users and bundled packages including AI cloud desktops. In Hubei, China Unicom rolled out packages ranging from 6 million to 18 million tokens, priced between 7.5 yuan and 359 yuan.

This strategic pivot by the telecom giants is seen as a way to monetize their extensive compute infrastructure and move beyond price wars over data packages. The government has even coined an official term, “ciyuan,” for these tokens, defining them as the settlement unit connecting technology supply with commercial demand. The National Data Administration reported a significant increase in token use, from 100 billion in early 2024 to 140 trillion in March 2026. This model aims to simplify access to large

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