Viewpoint: “Tokenized Exit” Could Become a New Application Scenario for Central Bank Digital Currencies

TechFlow News: On June 19, Caixin published an article noting that “Token export” is currently not a standardized concept in regulatory documents or corporate annual reports, and no publicly disclosed case yet exists in the open market that fully covers both of the following elements: “overseas clients invoking Tokens from Chinese AI data centers” and “cross-border payments, clearing, and final settlement conducted via central bank digital currency (CBDC).”

Discussions around CBDC-based cross-border payments are gradually shifting from grand narratives centered on monetary sovereignty and international financial competition toward new use cases grounded in real-world transactions. Among these, the “Token export” of AI inference services is viewed as a potential key entry point—packaging model capabilities, computing power, electricity, data centers, and industry-specific engineering expertise into tradable AI services for export. The core value of CBDC lies in its attributes as a “trusted settlement protocol,” including final settlement backed by central bank money, real-time cross-border clearing efficiency, programmable payment functionality, automated multi-party revenue distribution mechanisms, and embedded regulatory visibility. These features can integrate with enterprise-level AI service metering systems to enable a closed-loop process—from service invocation and billing to clearing and settlement.