Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon stated that global token demand is approximately 31.7 billion every 10 seconds in 2026, forecasting a surge to 1.27 trillion by 2030. This 40x increase is attributed to AI shifting from human-paced to persistent agent-paced activity, driving the AI economy into background infrastructure.
The shift to agent-paced AI activity will drive a massive increase in token demand, making background infrastructure costs a binding variable for AI deployment.