China's computing power is set to grow from 21% of the global total today to 30% by 2030, according to Wu Hequan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Speaking at the 2026 China Computing Power Conference in Langfang, Hebei province, Wu attributed the surge to the rise of AI agents, which have dramatically increased the consumption of tokens — the basic units of text or code processed by large language models.
According to IThome, Wu noted that daily token consumption in China reached 140 trillion in March this year. He emphasized that efficiency, not sheer volume, will define future token usage, and that falling costs are encouraging broader adoption. Token consumption directly drives demand for computing power, which is why China's share is expected to climb.
Token demand to explode
Rao Shaoyang, director of the industry and enterprise strategy research institute at China Telecom Research Institute, offered a more detailed forecast. He estimated that China's annual token consumption will reach 10 billion billion (10^18) in 2026, and exceed 350 billion billion (3.5 × 10^20) by 2030, implying a compound annual growth rate of nearly 12 times.
The conference, running from September 11 to 13, also showcased new computing hardware and software products, and highlighted initiatives like the "Star Plan" satellite constellation by Guoxing Aerospace and a planned 100,000-GPU AI factory by JD Cloud and Moore Threads. Beijing's economic development zone also announced nearly 2 billion yuan (about $282 million) in initial credit for token-based computing loans.
Wu's remarks underscore a broader trend: as AI moves from experimental to practical applications, the infrastructure behind it — computing power and data processing — becomes a strategic resource. For tech watchers, the numbers signal not just growth, but a shift in how China measures its digital economy.
Based on reporting by IT之家. Edited and published in English by geisou.
