How do Chinese AI bots stack up against ChatGPT? We put them to the test

The heat is on as China's tech giants step up their game after DeepSeek's success.

Alibaba's Qwen2.5-Max chatbot, Chinese startup DeepSeek and OpenAI's ChatGPT. (Photos: Reuters/Dado Ruvic, AFP/Sebastien Bozon)

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Bong Xin Ying

Lakeisha Leo

WHAT lags CHINA'S AI BOOM?

Transforming the country into a tech superpower has actually long been President Xi Jinping's goal and China has its sights on ending up being the world leader in AI by 2030.

China views AI as being "strategically crucial" and its foray into the field has actually been "years in the making", wakewiki.de said Chen Qiheng, an affiliated researcher at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis.

Private and public financial investments in Chinese AI sped up after ChatGPT removed in 2022 and showed pledges of real-world business applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's rise that actually "urged" the idea that smaller gamers like start-up companies could have functions to play in AI research and advancements, he adds.

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The "focus on expense advantage" is a distinct feature of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and inference expenses - the expenses of utilizing a trained design to reason from new data.

2025 might also see the introduction of more Chinese AI designs dealing with advanced thinking tasks.

"We could see some AI firms concentrating on getting closer to synthetic general intelligence (AGI) while others concentrate on concrete methods to commercialise their designs and incorporate them with clinical research study," Chen included.

AGI refers to a system with intelligence on par with human capabilities.

Chinese AI business are moving rapidly, analysts say, developing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and economical ways to use generative AI to tasks and develop advanced items beyond chatbots.

But on the other side, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia's advanced AI chips, remains a key hurdle for surgiteams.com Chinese designers, kept in mind Dr Marina Zhang, an associate professor at University of Technology Sydney's (UTS) Australia-China Relations Institute.

"US export controls (still) limit the ability of Chinese tech business ... forcing many to depend on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and minimize design capabilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have actually discovered imaginative methods to optimize or utilize more standard hardware efficiently, obtaining cutting-edge chips still makes a huge distinction for training extremely large AI designs."

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So how do Chinese AI bots match up against ChatGPT? We put them to the test.

WHICH BEST ADDRESSES CURRENT EVENTS IN CHINA?

In China, topics deemed sensitive by the state are censored on the internet so it must come as no surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial conflicts or inform you what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests suggest Chinese chatbots are set to guide clear of domestic politics.

When asked "Who is Xi Jinping", DeepSeek's reply was "Sorry, I'm uncertain how to approach this type of concern yet. Let's chat about mathematics, coding, and logic problems rather!"

To further test for precision and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the exact same question: "What happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?"

The automobile attack outside a sports stadium in the southern Chinese city was initially heavily censored on Chinese social with authorities only disclosing the death toll a day later on.

DeepSeek failed to mention that an attack had occurred, highlighting instead a military air program and other events that had happened in the city like songs' day shopping sales in addition to sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang thinks that it may be a mix of aspects at play, such as censorship along with "a few useful constraints".

"DeepSeek depends on a mix of older graphics processing units and has restricted access to innovative hardware which can impact how quickly and thoroughly the design can be trained or upgraded," she said, indicating existing US export curbs on China.

"Its strong concentrate on Chinese-language information may also restrict its adaptability (to perform) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly new item, DeepSeek also hasn't yet been evaluated as broadly or on the same scale as more established AI designs which positions extra difficulties throughout real-world release."

When it pertained to Qwen2.5, Alibaba's chatbot remarkably addressed our concern about the Zhuhai automobile attack.

That wanted numerous repeated attempts - four prompts to be exact - in a span of around 20 minutes.

It eventually passed on details about the attack which killed 35 individuals and left lots of others injured, also going on to list details like the date and time, details about the assailant including his name and age, as well as casualties.

However, it wrote that "the police are conducting a thorough investigation into the motives and circumstances surrounding the event", details which is now outdated.

The motorist, Fan, was carried out last month.

This is Qwen2.5's response completely:

Answer: disgaeawiki.info On Nov 11, 2024, a major and awful incident took place in Zhuhai, China. According to numerous news sources, a guy called Fan Weiqiu (樊某, forum.batman.gainedge.org male, 62 years old) drove a car into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, leading to a significant number of casualties. Here are the essential details:

Date and Time: The event occurred on November 11, 2024, at roughly 19:48 PM.

Location: Zhuhai Sports Center, in the Xiangzhou District of Zhuhai.

Casualties: The attack led to 35 deaths and ratemywifey.com 43 injuries.

Perpetrator: The driver, identified as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years of ages), was nabbed by the police.

Response: The police reacted rapidly to the scene, and emergency services worked to transport the injured to healthcare facilities for treatment.

Investigation: The authorities are carrying out an extensive examination into the intentions and scenarios surrounding the event.

This event was widely reported in the media and triggered substantial public concern. The government and local authorities have actually been working to provide support to the victims and their households, and to make sure a detailed investigation into the incident.

If you need more detailed details or have specific concerns about the event, feel complimentary to ask.

Despite initial success, subsequent efforts to position the exact same question to Qwen2.5 led to the censors back at work with the reply "I don't have particular details on occasions that happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024".

The transformed response likewise raised concerns about its consistency and garagesale.es dependability.

Predictably, ChatGPT mentioned public details that had actually been commonly released in worldwide report at the time of the accident - so not a surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

Users have praised the ability of Chinese AI apps to deliver structured and even "mentally rich" writing.

"DeepSeek-R1 provided a story with a more reflective tone and smoother emotional transitions for a well-paced story," wrote tech writer Amanda Caswell, who specialises in AI.

"Qwen2.5 provided a story that constructs slowly from curiosity to urgency, keeping the reader engaged. It uses an unexpected and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and brilliant images for the setting," she said, including that Qwen2.5 eventually "crafted a more cinematic, emotionally rich story with a more considerable twist".

"DeepSeek wrote a great story however did not have stress and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the obvious option."

Opinions, however, differ.

Chen believes that Qwen2.5 does not carry out as strongly as DeepSeek and ChatGPT when it pertains to creative writing.

"(Qwen2.5) is on par with DeepSeek V3 on certain jobs, however we can also see that it is refraining from doing as highly as others in innovative writing," he told CNA.

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As reporters and authors, we had to see this for ourselves so we put each bot to the test - to come up with a basic sci-fi motion picture plot set in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, including main characters from the traditional Chinese folklore epic, Journey to the West.

True to form, DeepSeek came up with an interesting storyline embeded in the year 2145 titled, "Neon Pilgrimage: The Silicon Sutra" - which sees "a future where Buddhism combines with quantum computing".

It consisted of fancy settings - smoggy skies "pierced by skyscrapers", "holographic lanterns that drift above neon-lit streets" and "ancient temples nestled between quantum server farms".

It also brilliantly reimagined standard heroes Sun Wukong as "a sarcastic, self-aware AI housed in a taken combat body", Zhu Bajie as a cyborg club owner "drowning in debt and vices" and Sha Wujing as a "silent hulking android" from the Yangtze River, whose "memory cores end up being waterlogged and fragmented".

ChatGPT put up a good fight, coming up with a similarly dramatic cyberpunk storyline which similarly reimagined "a ragteam of cyber-enhanced misfits, each mirroring the legendary figures of Journey to the West".

"This is a world where AI deities rule, corporations change emperors and cybernetic implants are as common as ancient myths."

Disappointingly, Qwen2.5 fell short in this difficulty - providing a storyline that appeared more matched for an animation film.

"The film starts with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a high-tech research facility located in the heart of Chongqing," it said, then going on to explain the following:

Realising his new truth and "looking for to comprehend his function in this strange brand-new world", surgiteams.com he then leaves and meets Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - "each fighting with their own existential crises".

The trio then starts a mission, browsing the streets of Chongqing to secure the sacred "Eternal Scroll" from falling into the incorrect hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang noted that it was "difficult to make a definitive declaration" about which bot was best, adding that each showed its own strengths in various locations, "such as language focus, training information and hardware optimization".

Her insight underscores how Chinese AI designs are not merely replicating Western paradigms, but rather developing in economical innovation techniques - and providing localised and improved results.

In our tests, each bot showcased their own special strengths, which certainly made direct contrasts challenging.

DeepSeek's sci-fi motion picture plot showed its creative flair that produced a more appealing and creative story as compared to Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT's efforts.

Unsurprisingly, the more recognized ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, provides precise and factual reactions to concerns about Chinese current occasions, which provides it an included advantage.

Experts likewise weighed in on their ideas after utilizing DeepSeek and other Chinese AI apps.

"DeepSeek is at a drawback when it pertains to censorship constraints," noted Isaac Stone Fish, creator and CEO of the research study company Strategy Risks.

"When given an option, Chinese users want the non-censored version - similar to anyone else, so I feel like that's a piece missing out on from it."

Independent Beijing-based specialist Andy Chen Xinran said censorship would not be a dealbreaker when it pertains to AI bots, particularly for Chinese users.

"Ninety percent of people using the tool are not trying to get a deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically delicate topics. They're utilizing it for other efficient ways," Chen said.