Qualcomm CEO expects global token demand to increase 40-fold to 12.7 trillion by 2030.

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon cited data indicating that global token demand will reach approximately 31.7 billion every 10 seconds by 2026, climbing to 1.27 trillion by 2030—a roughly 40-fold increase over four years. Amon stated that the surge in token demand is driven by AI shifting from human-paced interactions to agent-paced activities. He also pointed out that behind every useful action lies a hidden cost: context must be carried, memory must be updated, sensors may need to be interpreted, and errors must be captured before they become expensive.