For the first time, the amount of inference data generated by artificial intelligence systems in China has surpassed the amount of data used to train those systems, according to a new government-backed report, illustrating how the country is increasingly adopting AI at scale.
The report released on Saturday by the China Centre for Information Industry Development (CCID), which operates under China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), cited recent official data showing that China’s average daily token calls exceeded 175 trillion, an increase of more than 1,000 times from early 2024.
Inference refers to the process of running trained AI models to respond to user requests, which involves processing units of data known as tokens. As AI adoption accelerates, the volume of token calls, which refers to AI usage through public cloud service providers, provides an indication of growing demand for AI services.