ByteDance saw usage of its Doubao large language models (LLMs) rise more than tenfold this year, as more enterprises in China adopt artificial intelligence to increase productivity and reduce operating expenses, according to the head of its cloud computing services unit.

"AI is being adopted at an unprecedented speed, and how to make better use of it has become a question all businesses have to answer well," Tan Dai, president of ByteDance cloud unit Volcano Engine, said in Shanghai on Thursday.

Doubao's average daily token usage exceeded 50 trillion tokens this month, up from 4 trillion tokens in December 2024, according to Tan.

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Tokens are the basic units of data processed by AI models - comparable to a pixel in an image, a snippet of sound or a word in a sentence. One English word was worth 1.3 tokens, while a Chinese character amounted to 2.5 tokens.

For chatbots, a billion tokens equates to around a million conversations. Tokens are also the standard billing units for using LLMs through application programming interfaces (APIs).

Without naming specific clients, Tan said Volcano Engine has more than 100 corporate clients that have used more than 1 trillion tokens to date.

That volume of activity underscored how overall token consumption by businesses across mainland China has continued to grow in the country's fast-developing and highly competitive AI market.

The logo of Volcano Engine, the cloud computing services unit of ByteDance, is seen at its headquarters in Beijing. Photo: Shutterstock alt=The logo of Volcano Engine, the cloud computing services unit of ByteDance, is seen at its headquarters in Beijing. Photo: Shutterstock>

Like other cloud services providers, Volcano Engine charges users based on the number of tokens consumed when an AI model is accessed via APIs - tools that enable developers to integrate AI and machine learning capabilities into their own applications.

Citing data from research firm IDC, Tan said Volcano Engine accounted for nearly half, or 49.2 per cent, of AI model-focused public cloud services in China this year.

That meant "for each two tokens consumed in Chinese public cloud services, one was from Volcano Engine", according to Tan.

At present, major Volcano Engine users in China include carmakers Mercedes-Benz and BYD , China Merchants Bank and online education platform Yuanfudao .