Tmall opens AI token services shop

Chinese shoppers accustomed to filling their Taobao carts with clothes, smartphones and household goods can now add something far less tangible: tokens that power artificial intelligence models.

Alibaba's Tmall on Thursday launched an "AI Space Station", bringing services from Alibaba Cloud, Zhipu AI, Kimi and Mini-Max onto one of China's biggest e-commerce platforms.

The new section sells monthly and quarterly token plans, coding subscriptions and pay-as-you-go packages, with services delivered either through redemption codes or directly topped up to users' accounts.

The move may look like little more than a new sales channel. But it points to a deeper shift in China's AI industry: computing services are being packaged as standard consumer products that users can search for, compare and buy much like a phone data plan or video-streaming subscription.

Kimi, Zhipu AI and Byte-Dance's Doubao are among companies experimenting with paid memberships, token packages and premium capabilities.

Zhipu AI moved first, opening an official flagship store on Tmall a day before the launch and putting its GLM Coding Plan on the virtual shelves.

Its individual subscriptions range from 118 yuan ($17.60) to 1,078 yuan a month across Lite, Pro and Max tiers, alongside packages for teams. Searches related to the products on the platform jumped 40-fold from the previous day on the store's first day.

According to the National Data Administration, China's daily consumption of AI tokens exceeded 140 trillion in March, more than 1,000 times the level at the start of 2024.

Chen Duan, director of the digital economy integration and innovation development center at the Central University of Finance and Economics, said in a separate interview that charging for large-model services can help companies identify the most valuable, engaged and demanding users from a much larger free user base.

The shift, she said, amounts to moving from managing internet traffic toward deeper management of user value.

AI creates productivity, creativity and decision-making support, Chen said, making its commercial logic different from the "attention economy", in which many internet services were monetized mainly through advertising.

Whether users keep paying, however, ultimately depends on whether the value they receive continues to exceed the price, she added.

chengyu@chinadaily.com.cn