Charting China: Token Usage Surges 1,400-Fold—What Is China's Large Model Ecosystem Changing?

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[Text/Images: China in Charts]

Tokens are both AI's "unit of language measurement" and the "digital electricity" flowing through the computing power era.

If you want to understand the real progress of China's artificial intelligence, you don't need empty slogans—just observe the flow of tokens: how fast they are used, where they are consumed, what they cost, and who is paying for them.

In the third installment of China in Charts, we use six charts to piece together this ecosystem from different micro-level angles.

1. AI is moving from a novelty toy for tech geeks to the underlying infrastructure of all industries

Computing power is being converted into productivity at a visible speed. In early 2024, the national daily average token call volume was only 100 billion; two years and two months later, in March 2026, that number had soared to 140 trillion, a surge of about 1,400 times. The chart uses a logarithmic axis; if placed on a standard axis, the slope would be almost straight up, showing that China's intelligent development remains in a period of strong exponential expansion.

By June 2026, two "markers" appear on the chart: the official monitored core daily average was 175 trillion, while a broader measure covering a wider industrial boundary reached 500 trillion. This explosion not only reflects the normalization of large-model calls but also marks AI's transformation from a novelty toy for tech geeks into the underlying infrastructure of thousands of industries.

2. China's AI computing demand is being deeply activated by increasingly complex application scenarios

What drives the exponential surge in token consumption is not only that "more people are using it," but also that "tasks have become deeper." A casual daily Q&A consumes about 1,000 tokens; but when AI becomes an education agent that needs autonomous planning and reflective adjustment, a single deep creation task jumps to about 3.625 million tokens.

A coding agent running continuously for a day can consume as many as 7 million tokens; and generating a single 1.5-minute premium AI short drama can require 5 million to 10 million calls. From "single Q&A" to "long-horizon autonomous work," token consumption has crossed three to four orders of magnitude.

3. Chinese AI models: from "substitutes" to "absolute mainstays"

On OpenRouter, a neutral aggregation platform that brings together global tech geeks (mainly reflecting the preferences of independent developers worldwide), Chinese large models have launched a impressive breakout battle.

In early 2025, Chinese models accounted for only 6% of token calls on the platform; just 19 months later, in July 2026, that share had surged to 61.5%. Estimates by another independent institution in September reached a similar conclusion: Chinese models accounted for 65% of calls, exceeding the 31% of US models.

In an open arena where developers have full autonomy and plug-and-play access, Chinese models, with extreme cost-effectiveness and rapid iteration, have completed their identity leap from "substitutes" to "absolute mainstays."

4: Application scenarios: from searching for answers to generating a work

Where exactly do the massive tokens flow in ordinary people's lives? CNNIC's survey this year clearly depicts the real landscape of technology adoption.

"Answering questions" remains the most solid high-frequency base, accounting for 76.0%; followed by "generating and processing images/videos" (47.8%), then "text creation" (37.6%) and "office minutes/PPT summaries" (32.5%).

5. "High usage, low revenue" constitutes the most real tension in China's current AI going global and inclusive process

Behind "flying into ordinary people's homes" is a breathtaking cost plunge. The input price of representative models fell from $30 per million tokens in spring 2023 all the way to $0.07 in mid-2026, a three-order-of-magnitude drop in cost over three years; extreme engineering optimization has pushed large models into an era of affordable universal access.

But the other side of technological prosperity is commercial reality: taking OpenRouter platform data from September 2026 as an example, Chinese models, while contributing as much as 65% of call volume, actually received only 30% of developer spending share due to their affordable unit prices (a gap of 35 percentage points).

6 China's AI: from "technological catch-up" to "scale penetration"

When there is no longer a chasm in underlying capabilities, the contest over ecosystems and calls quietly begins. In the comprehensive scores of the authoritative blind test benchmark LMSYS Arena early this year, the score gap between top Chinese and US flagship models narrowed to 39 points (about 2.7%), and their performance on general benchmarks is now hard to distinguish.

On the other end of the balance, where capabilities are infinitely leveled, the scale of calls is tilting toward China: data from developer platforms in autumn 2026 show that Chinese models' call share over the past 30 days reached 66.8%, about 2.1 times that of US models (31.5%); in some single-week monitoring it even reached 71%. Capabilities running neck and neck, combined with cost and engineering deployment advantages, have given Chinese AI strong usage inertia and developer appeal.

From 100 billion to hundreds of trillions in exponential leap, from single retrieval Q&A to autonomous planning agents, these six charts show not only the cold consumption curve of computing power, but also the real process of China's artificial intelligence shifting from "technological catch-up" to "scale penetration."

We see that the infinite approach of frontier benchmark capabilities and highly competitive inclusive costs have allowed Chinese models to quickly win traffic dominance in the global open developer ecosystem.

This is not only a contest over code and algorithms, but also a lasting race over technological efficiency, commercial closed loops, and industrial endurance.

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