Token Photo: VCG

　　Approaching.ai, a Beijing-based high-efficiency artificial intelligence (AI) token production service provider, said on Tuesday that it has completed its series A financing round, bringing its total fundraising to more than 1 billion yuan ($147.5 million) within six months, according to a note sent to the Global Times.

　　The new capital will be used to expand high-quality AI token production capacity, upgrade the company"s self-developed ATaaS platform — short for Approaching.ai Token as a Service — and further integrate domestic heterogeneous computing power into core production scenarios, the company said.

　　The latest funding round comes as investors and industry players increasingly focus on the rapidly expanding AI inference market and the rising demand for high-quality token production — the underlying computing output used by large-language models and other AI systems, according to experts.

　　Tian Feng, former dean of SenseTime"s Intelligence Industry Research Institute, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the participation of industry investors reflects growing confidence in the long-term value of AI token factories, while also signaling stronger market interest in scalable, high-quality token production capabilities.

　　"We believe that high-quality AI token services have become a core necessity for enterprises as large AI models move deeply into production systems," Approaching.ai"s CEO Ai Zhiyuan said.

　　"Through close collaboration with industry investors, we will accelerate the large-scale commercialization of domestic heterogeneous computing solutions and help Chinese chips achieve large-scale, routine deployment in high-standard AI production environments," Ai added.