China designates 'ciyuan' as official translation for AI token

China has officially designated 'ciyuan' as the translation for 'token' in AI, giving the tech term strong economic overtones. Liu Liehong described it as a value anchor for the intelligent era.

China has officially designated 'ciyuan' as the translation for 'token', giving strong economic overtones to what has been a tech term. In Chinese, 'ci' translates to 'word', while 'yuan' is commonly used as a synonym for 'currency'. For instance, the basic unit of the Chinese renminbi is the yuan, and most foreign currencies are referred to as yuan in Chinese, prefixed by their respective country names. In his address, Liu Liehong said the token, or ciyuan, was not only a value anchor for the intelligent era but also a 'settlement unit' linking technological supply with commercial demand, thereby allowing business models to be quantified. 'A new value system is rapidly taking shape around the invocation, distribution and settlement of tokens, and this is becoming a major pathway for monetising the AI industry,' he said. One advantage for China stems from electricity, the essential raw material required to produce tokens. China is the world’s largest electricity producer, and its power capacity has expanded at a rate that has repeatedly surpassed official targets.

Relaterade artiklar

Chinese minister announces China's AI sector exceeding $165 billion at National People's Congress, with futuristic AI graphics on display.
Bild genererad av AI

China's AI sector tops $165 billion in 2025, minister says

Rapporterad av AI Bild genererad av AI

The output of China's core artificial intelligence industry exceeded 1.2 trillion yuan ($165 billion) in 2025, with more than 6,200 companies operating in the field, said Li Lecheng, head of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The remarks came after the opening meeting of the fourth session of the 14th National People's Congress in Beijing on Thursday.

China has added 12 banks to its digital yuan (e-CNY) system, more than doubling the number of institutions using it in day-to-day operations. The expansion deepens the currency's role in the financial system after Beijing pledged to “steadily develop the digital yuan” in its latest five-year plan.

Rapporterad av AI

Analysts say many yuan transactions are now routed through China’s own global payment system CIPS, which often does not appear in traditional data sets. This could explain the gap between Beijing’s claim that the yuan is the world’s third-largest payment currency and figures from trackers like Swift.

Lu Tiezhong, chairman of China National Nuclear Power Co (CNNP), has proposed steady development of nuclear power to meet the surging energy demands of the AI industry and accelerate the construction of a modern energy system. In his submissions to the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference this year, he highlighted that global tech giants are increasingly turning to nuclear energy to address high-energy consumption challenges from AI computing. As a stable, reliable, and zero-carbon baseload energy source, nuclear power is positioned to support high-load, nonstop facilities like AI data centers.

Rapporterad av AI

Shenzhen-based EngineAI is leveraging Hong Kong as a springboard for global expansion, planning a local listing this year while using its computing power to enter the North American market. The company's robots have been bought by Mideast firms and require cloud-based computing accessible from anywhere.

Former OpenAI executive Zack Kass says Chinese enterprises lag behind US peers in AI adoption due to rigid corporate hierarchies, despite tech-savvy consumers. In a recent interview with the South China Morning Post, he described China as having a 'techno-centric consumer' and the US a 'techno-centric enterprise'. Kass said this cultural divergence explains the frenzy around OpenClaw in China, even as it struggles for scale in the US.

Rapporterad av AI

Developers are equipping increasingly autonomous AI agents with crypto wallets, enabling them to hold assets, trade tokens, and hire other agents, according to Electric Capital. While the technical infrastructure is advancing, legal frameworks lag behind. At NEARCON 2026, Avichal Garg highlighted the unresolved issues around liability for such non-human entities.

 

 

 

Denna webbplats använder cookies

Vi använder cookies för analys för att förbättra vår webbplats. Läs vår integritetspolicy för mer information.
Avböj