At its 2025 annual general meeting, CM BANK addressed budget control for AI model usage. The bank's Chief Information Officer, Zhou Tianhong, emphasized the critical nature of this issue. He noted that while the bank made a major push for widespread AI model adoption last year, its large scale—with over 100,000 employees—poses a risk of significant effort yielding limited tangible business results.

To address this, even before formalizing its "AI First" strategy, CM BANK established a comprehensive cost-benefit measurement framework within its technology division. Costs are primarily tracked in two areas: investment in R&D personnel, encompassing both tech and business line staff, and the cost of AI model usage tokens. For measuring returns, the bank has developed a six-dimensional evaluation system.

Zhou Tianhong disclosed that the bank's current cost-benefit ratio for its AI model initiatives is approximately 20%, which he described as a favorable figure. This translates to an investment of 20 units generating 100 units of value. However, he acknowledged that while costs can be calculated precisely, measuring benefits is more complex due to the intricate nature of the bank's value chain. CM BANK is actively reviewing its algorithms, data sources, and data quality for benefit measurement this year.

Zhou highlighted the bank's strong commitment to technology, with an annual total tech investment of around 13 billion. Within this budget, the current expenditure on computing power procurement is not particularly high, indicating significant potential for future increases in AI computing investments.