Professor  Ren  Pengju from Xi’an Jiaotong University pointed out that Token has become a key infrastructure unit in the intelligent age, following electricity and bandwidth, and will greatly reshape social production and daily life.

A token is the basic unit used by large language models to process and generate contents. In English, one token roughly equals 0.75 words, while in Chinese, one character often accounts for one or half a token. Every interaction with AI consumes tokens, which measure the computing cost of artificial intelligence. Unlike physical energy or network resources, token turns intelligence into a quantifiable and tradable resource, much like kilowatt-hours measures electricity.

Professor Ren stressed that tokens are not a form of digital currency or “digital gold”. They are  not scarce and can be continuously generated through computing power. Their price is determined by hardware costs, energy consumption, and the value created in specific scenarios. In the future, general tokens will become more affordable, while professional tokens in high-end fields will maintain high added value.

The widespread use of tokens is also reshaping the job market. Repetitive mental work such as basic writing and routine customer service is being gradually replaced. Instead, the ability to ask precise questions, master professional knowledge, and cooperate efficiently with AI will become core competencies.

We can foresee with certainty that the use of tokens carries a clear "skill premium." Those who can leverage tokens to amplify their personal output several times will see their impact grow exponentially. Similarly, a tech company’s competitiveness may no longer depend only on how many factories it owns, but also on how many high-quality tokens it “consumes”—a measure of how deeply it leverages AI in R&D, management, and service delivery.