Whoever produces tokens cheaply, at scale, has an advantage in the AI economy, just as cheap steel once decided industrial supremacy
3-MIN READ3-MINJeffrey WuPublished: 4:30pm, 15 Apr 2026A quiet but consequential shift is reshaping the global artificial intelligence competition, and it has little to do with which country builds the most powerful model.
To understand why, start with a basic concept. Tokens are the fundamental units AI models use to process and generate language: every word, response and automated task breaks down into them. Cloud providers charge by the token the way utilities charge by the kilowatt-hour. Whoever produces them most cheaply, at the greatest scale, holds an advantage in the AI economy like how cheap steel once decided industrial supremacy.
Washington has spent three years building the most comprehensive technology export control regime since the Cold War, designed for a world where competitive advantage travels in hardware: chips that can be counted, shipments that can be blocked, supply chains that can be pressured. A different contest is now taking shape alongside it, one for which the existing toolkit has no architecture.
