China's three state-owned telecoms carriers — China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom — have each positioned billable AI tokens as a central pillar of their growth strategies, as accelerating artificial intelligence adoption drives surging demand for computing infrastructure across the country. The carriers disclosed their first-half 2026 financial results this month, with all three flagging tokens — the fundamental unit of data processed by AI models — as a key operational metric alongside compute power and data volumes.

China Telecom's Token Push

On Thursday, 21 August 2026, China Telecom reported a 95 per cent surge in intelligent computing revenue for the first half of the year. That growth propelled a 7.1 per cent rise in its broader 'intelligent business' revenue to 31.1 billion yuan (approximately US$4.6 billion).

The carrier highlighted token packages now offered to mobile users nationwide, alongside a recent upgrade to its Xingchen TokenHub platform, which reportedly hosts 142 large language models and more than 420 industry-specific AI applications. China Telecom Cloud revenue also rose 7.8 per cent to 61.8 billion yuan during the period.

The company said it had upgraded Xirang, its orchestration software for compute resources and networks, extending support to more than 20 chip architectures — a move that signals the carrier's intent to remain hardware-agnostic as domestic chip alternatives proliferate.

China Unicom's 'Token Supermarket'

China Unicom, which reported earnings on Tuesday, posted 41.9 billion yuan in computing-power revenue — a 13 per cent increase spanning data centres, leased compute, business software, and cloud-based AI. In its filing, the company pointed to the launch of a 'token supermarket,' described as part of an end-to-end ecosystem designed to create, transfer, store, and use AI tokens.

Unicom's UniAI platform reportedly connected more than 200 large language models and collected over 500 terabytes of high-quality data, according to the company's disclosure.

Why It Matters

The pivot to token-based monetisation represents a structural shift in how state-owned telecoms operators are redefining their role in China's digital economy. Rather than acting solely as connectivity providers, these carriers are positioning themselves as full-stack AI infrastructure platforms — aggregating models, managing compute, and selling inference capacity directly to enterprises and consumers.

This 'token factory' model mirrors broader global trends where cloud and telecoms incumbents compete to capture a share of AI inference revenue, a market that industry analysts note is growing faster than model training itself.

The Competitive Backdrop

All three carriers are racing to differentiate their AI offerings as domestic competition intensifies, with private cloud providers and hyperscalers also vying for enterprise AI workloads. The emphasis on supporting more than 20 chip architectures by China Telecom reflects the fragmented but rapidly maturing domestic semiconductor supply chain.

What's Next

Investors and industry observers will be watching whether token-based revenue streams can sustain their current growth trajectory through the second half of 2026, particularly as pricing pressure on AI inference intensifies globally. China Mobile's upcoming detailed disclosures on its own token and computing metrics will be the next key data point to watch.