(Yicai) May 19 -- China Telecom’s shares gained for a second trading day in a row after it joined China Mobile and China Unicom in launching trial commercial token plans. The country’s three biggest telecom carriers are moving to monetize artificial intelligence computing power through the fast-growing token services market.

China Telecom [SHA: 601728] closed 4.4 percent higher at CNY7.12 (USD1.05) a share in Shanghai today, after climbing 7.7 percent yesterday. Its Hong Kong-listed stock [HKG: 0728] added 0.7 percent to end at HKD5.68 (73 US cents), following a 6 percent gain yesterday.

China Telecom's trial token plans are organized by user segment, the Beijing-based company announced on May 17. For developers and small and micro businesses, it offers three monthly tiers priced at CNY39.90, CNY159.90, and CNY299.90 (USD5.87, USD23.50, and USD44.10,) with token allowances of 15 million, 70 million, and 150 million. For individuals and households, monthly plans start at CNY9.90 and include a minimum of 10 million tokens.

Two days earlier, Shanghai Telecom, a city branch of China Telecom, launched a pay-as-you-go option priced at CNY1 per 250,000 tokens, with support for more than 30 mainstream large language models.

Shanghai Unicom, the Shanghai arm of China Unicom, began offering token services to local sole proprietors on May 16, including a free 30 million-token trial quota valid through the end of next month. Late last month, Hubei Unicom launched AI computing packages that include a Token Plan and a Coding Plan.

Since last month, China Mobile’s subsidiaries in the provinces of Jiangsu, Guangdong, and Shandong, as well as Beijing, have also been rolling out token plans, with Beijing Mobile offering a one-time purchase option starting at CNY5.99.

“Telecom operators have long been searching for new growth curves,” said Ma Jihua, an independent analyst covering telcos and the internet. As the underlying computing infrastructure for many LLMs and AI agents, operators can now monetize that capacity through their own distribution channels, generating direct income while drawing more customers into their data centers and creating a closed commercial loop, he said.

Their entry into the market should help bring AI computing to everyday users at more affordable prices, Ma pointed out.

Even so, Ma noted that token revenue is still modest and unlikely to support long-term growth on its own. The next step, he said, is for telecom operators to develop genuinely useful intelligent applications that combine computing power with connectivity, creating the kind of “killer” services that reflect the telecom industry’s distinctive strengths.

The Chinese term token was officially standardized as "词元" (cí yuán) by Liu Liehong, director of the National Data Administration, at the China Development Forum in March, defining it as the smallest unit of information processed by an LLM. 

Average daily token usage exceeded 140 trillion in China as of March, more than 1,000 times that at the start of 2024, according to the NDA. By industry convention, 1,000 tokens are roughly equivalent to 500 to 700 Chinese characters.

China Mobile’s shares [SHA: 600941] finished up 0.7 percent at CNY101 apiece in Shanghai today, after adding 2.4 percent yesterday, while in Hong Kong, its stock [HKG: 0941] gained 0.5 percent to HKD86.80 (USD11.08) today and 0.2 percent yesterday. China Unicom [SHA: 600050] closed 0.6 percent higher at CNY4.95 today, following a 5.6 percent gain yesterday.

Editor: Martin Kadiev