“The industry’s business model may evolve toward one in which basic services remain free, while value-added services are paid. This can give companies enough revenue to continue developing and upgrading their products and services,” Liu said.

　　Volcano Engine announced on April 2 that the average daily token usage of the Doubao LLM had exceeded 120 trillion in March, doubling over the previous three months and rising 1,000-fold from when the model was first made available externally in May 2024, according to Science and Technology Daily.

　　Token usage is a core indicator for measuring the pace of AI development, and the rapid growth reflects the speed at which AI applications are being implemented in China, per the report.

　　Globally, leading AI products including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude have introduced paid subscription tiers at different levels.

　　Some LLM companies in China have also raised prices this year.

　　Chinese AI startup Zhipu adjusted the pricing structure for its GLM coding plan, a subscription package for coding-related AI services, on February 12, with an overall increase starting from 30 percent, citing sustained strong market demand and rapid growth in user numbers and usage. It later raised the cost of access to its most advanced AI model twice more in March and April.

　　However, DeepSeek, another leading Chinese LLM developer, has recently moved in the opposite direction by announcing sharp price cuts for its latest DeepSeek-V4 model.

　　In late April, DeepSeek said it would significantly reduce API prices, including cutting the input cache-hit price for its full lineup to one-tenth of the launch price, after earlier offering a limited-time 75-percent discount for the DeepSeek-V4-Pro API.