⚙️ AI Hardware

Tokens: Silicon Valley's Sneaky Cash Cow in Every AI Chat

What if the 'atoms' of AI aren't innovating language, but just padding your invoice? Tokens rule LLMs, but who's really profiting from these invisible slices?

Sarah Chen 📅 Mar 22, 2026 ⏱️ 3 min read 👁️ 7 views
Flowchart showing text breaking into tokens via BPE in LLMs

⚡ Key Takeaways

  • Tokens are subword chunks via BPE, roughly ¾ word each, driving all LLM processing.
  • Different models = different token counts and costs; always check.
  • Tokenization echoes 90s compression but now boosts AI firms' pricing power.

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Sarah Chen
Written by

Sarah Chen

AI research editor covering LLMs, benchmarks, and the race between frontier labs. Previously at MIT CSAIL.

#AI pricing #BPE algorithm #LLM tokens #tokenization

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Originally reported by Towards AI

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