From the article:

Banks, cafes, and telcos, among other small and big businesses, are offering free AI tokens as incentives to attract more customers. Some businesses are selling tokens much like mobile data plans, offering them as credit card rewards, or giving them out like free Wi-Fi.

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The massive popularity of AI has led to has sharply increase in token consumption globally. Daily token consumption in China surged to 500 trillion in mid-2026 from 100 billion in early 2024.

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Poe Zhao, a Beijing-based analyst and founder of the newsletter Hello China Tech, told Rest of World some of the token packages Chinese companies pushed into the consumer market are a “supply-led experiment.”

“Most ordinary users still encounter AI through an app or feature, without seeing a token balance,” he said.

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The trend began in June, when China Merchants Bank launched a credit card targeting AI developers. It offered new cardholders up to 1.8 billion tokens for use on Chinese AI startup MiniMax’s models.

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China’s three major telecom operators have packaged AI usage much like mobile data plans.

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Instead of offering free Wi-Fi, an increasing number of Chinese restaurants, cafes, and bars are now luring customers with free AI computing.

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Tokens have also reached one of China’s largest online secondhand marketplaces. On Alibaba-owned Xianyu, a platform known for selling used phones, furniture, and clothes, sellers advertise cheap access to AI models in packages measured by tokens.