As tokens emerge as a key resource in the artificial intelligence era, Guizhou province in Southwest China is stepping up efforts to tap into the emerging business by leveraging its strengths in computing power, data resources and application scenarios.

Rising as a new driver for high-quality growth, tokens and relevant industrial applications have become key for large-scale and cluster-based development, according to a conference on Monday in Guiyang.

In the field of AI, a token refers to the smallest unit of data processed by AI models.

The growing importance of tokens is reflected in official data. China's average daily token calls exceeded 140 trillion in March, representing a more than 1,000-fold surge from 100 billion at the beginning of 2024 and an increase of over 40 percent from 100 trillion at the end of 2025, said the National Data Administration.

"Guiyang and Gui'an New Area in Guizhou have laid a solid foundation in computing power and data resources, creating favorable conditions for the development of the token economy," said Fu Tao, vice-mayor of Guiyang.

The region is now home to 27 large-scale data centers, with total computing power exceeding 165 exaflops (exa floating point operations per second) and intelligent computing accounting for more than 98 percent, Fu said.

Tang Hanlin, chairman of China Data Pay, a Guizhou-based provider of data asset operation and digital-intelligence services, said Guiyang and Gui'an New Area have unique strengths in four key areas — power supply, computing power, AI models and data — making them a fertile ground to develop the token economy.

The company's token services platform has seen its average daily token calls exceed 12 billion, with both users and orders reaching hundreds of thousands, Tang said.

He said the growing demand for tokens has created new requirements for the specialization of token services, as general-purpose token services may lead to semantic ambiguity and output deviations due to a lack of domain-specific knowledge.

"We are using high-quality industry datasets for training and fine-tuning to transform general-purpose tokens into industry-specific ones, providing stronger support for the development of vertical AI applications," Tang said.

Citing the sector's development, Wang Xudong, president of industry development at Huawei Cloud, said tokens have yet to be widely used in vertical scenarios such as manufacturing, government services and public services, leaving significant room for growth in their role in supporting the real economy.

"We will focus on the distinctive sectors and work with leading enterprises to help drive the intelligent upgrading of industrial clusters in Guiyang and Gui'an New Area and across Guizhou," Wang said.

Global demand for AI services is also creating new growth opportunities for the region.

China Data Pay, for instance, said it is exploring overseas opportunities for its token services, leveraging local infrastructure such as dedicated international internet data channels while studying compliance and settlement requirements in different markets.

Bai Wenxi, vice-chairman of the China Enterprise Capital Union, said Guizhou should translate its strengths into new industrial momentum and strengthen its role in the emerging sector.

Luo Siyang in Guiyang contributed to this story.

zhangchenxu@chinadaily.com.cn