James Kynge

AI tokens are effectively the new oil.

And we've seen geopolitically what's happening in terms of oil supply in the Straits of Hormuz, you know, in the conflict between the US and Iran.

So we know how important oil is.

And AI tokens are really powering the AI race between the US and China.

And the key point is that China is producing these tokens much more cheaply than the US or any other country.

So to put it another way, China has developed a new structural advantage over the US.

And we all know how important this is, given the fact that the AI race between the US and China is absolutely critical to the future of the technological leadership between these two nations.

And of course, in terms of money, about $1.6 trillion.

trillion US dollars has been invested in artificial intelligence all over the world so far.

And last year alone, about 250 billion US dollars was invested in AI.

So obviously,

If China can build up as it is a structural advantage in the fact that it can produce the oil for the digital age much more cheaply than the US and any other country, then it has got a serious advantage.

And that's what we're beginning to see now.

And that's what underlies the big gap that you just quoted in the numbers, the amount of tokens that the US is using and China is using.

And it's becoming much more critical now.

for the reason that you also gave, because AI tokens are becoming an increasingly scarce resource because of the fact that these AI agents use many, many more tokens than the previous chatbot-dominated model.

So things like ChatGPT, an AI agent will use much more tokens than a chatbot like ChatGPT.

So the premium on being able to get tokens and get them quickly is far, far greater than it was even a few months ago.

Now, just for those listeners who are not AI experts, let me define a token so that people can get a sense of how important this really is.

A token is a fundamental unit of data.