China names AI tokens after the yuan. Should the US worry for the dollar?
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.
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One such advantage 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.
In his address, Liu 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.