China Telecom Research Institute's AI Infrastructure Development Research Report
(2026) says the AI industry is shifting from large-model and compute competition
to agent-scale deployment and monetization, driving explosive token-demand
growth. The institute projects China's annual token consumption will reach 1e17
tokens (≈100 quadrillion) in 2026 and exceed 3.5e19 tokens (≈35 quintillion) by
2030, with a compound annual growth rate approaching 12-fold.