Physix Frontier · News Briefing Card (enbrief · Oct 26, 2026)

Chinese Online Token Data Disputed; Doubao Says Video Gen Just 10% of Compute

KEY FACTS

Chinese Online disclosed in June that short dramas and video generation account for 55% of domestic AI Token consumption.
The data's statistical source is unclear and cannot be independently verified through public channels.
Doubao PR head Liu Xing said only about 10% of ByteDance's total compute is used for video generation.
The 58% US figure actually refers to the share of programming-related usage for OpenAI models on the OpenRouter platform.
The OpenRouter report only covers large language models and does not include text-to-video consumption.

KEY DATA

55%Chinese Online's claimed Token share for short dramas and video generation

15%Chinese Online's claimed Token share for software development

about 10%Share of ByteDance's total compute used by video generation models

over 100 trillionToken volume analyzed in OpenRouter report

PHYSIX OBSERVATION

This set of data has been severely distorted after repeated retelling: Token consumption does not equal compute, and Chinese and US statistical scopes are not comparable. What truly deserves attention is not 'who is shooting short dramas,' but the pace at which domestic models are catching up in enterprise services and programming scenarios. Public opinion is easily led astray by labels, but differences in commercialization paths do not equal a split in technological goals.

Source: enbrief original report ↗