Reuters reported on the creation of an AI token market in China to compete with the United States

China is developing a new financial instrument for artificial intelligence (AI), AI token futures, in an attempt to increase competition with the United States in the fast—growing AI market. This was reported by the Reuters news agency on May 28.

"The Shanghai Futures Exchange is at an early stage of developing futures contracts for so—called AI tokens, the smallest unit of information processed by artificial intelligence models," the material says.

We are talking about creating a new market for companies working with artificial intelligence. With its help, businesses will be able to fix the costs of AI work in advance and protect themselves from a sharp rise in prices. The United States is preparing similar tools for trading the cost of computing power needed for AI operation. China wants to use AI tokens, conventional units that reflect the amount of work performed by artificial intelligence when processing user requests.

China considers AI to be one of the key sectors of the economy and is actively increasing its capacity to operate AI services and train neural networks. According to official data, the volume of use of AI tokens has increased a thousandfold since the beginning of 2024 and exceeded 140 trillion per day by the end of March. Against the background of a sharp increase in demand, the country no longer has enough computing power and specialized chips for AI, which is why some services have begun to restrict user access.

The authorities and market participants expect that the launch of new financial instruments will help companies better plan their AI development costs and reduce the risks of a sharp increase in the cost of technology.

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