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 start-up 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 objective and China has its sights on becoming the world leader in AI by 2030.

China views AI as being "tactically essential" and its foray into the field has been "years in the making", said Chen Qiheng, an affiliated scientist at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis.

Private and surgiteams.com public financial investments in Chinese AI accelerated after ChatGPT took off in 2022 and showed pledges of real-world company applications, Chen told CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's rise that truly "encouraged" the idea that smaller sized gamers like start-up firms could have functions to play in AI research and advancements, he includes.

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

2025 could likewise see the development of more Chinese AI models taking on innovative thinking tasks.

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

AGI describes a system with intelligence on par with human abilities.

Chinese AI companies are moving quickly, analysts state, constructing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own ingenious and cost-efficient ways to use generative AI to jobs and establish advanced products beyond chatbots.

But on the other side, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia's advanced AI chips, remains an essential obstacle for Chinese designers, noted Dr Marina Zhang, an associate professor at University of Technology Sydney's (UTS) Australia-China Relations Institute.

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

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have actually discovered innovative methods to optimize or use more fundamental hardware efficiently, obtaining innovative chips still makes a big difference for training huge AI designs."

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

WHICH BEST ADDRESSES CURRENT EVENTS IN CHINA?

In China, subjects considered sensitive by the state are censored on the web so it need to come as no surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disagreements or tell you what took place in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests recommend Chinese chatbots are configured to avoid domestic politics.

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

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

The vehicle attack outside a sports stadium in the southern Chinese city was at first greatly censored on Chinese social media - with authorities just revealing the death toll a day later.

DeepSeek failed to discuss that an attack had occurred, highlighting rather a military air program and other occasions that had happened in the city like songs' day shopping sales along with sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang believes that it might be a mix of aspects at play, such as censorship as well as "a couple of useful constraints".

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

"Its strong concentrate on Chinese-language data might also restrict its versatility (to perform) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly new item, DeepSeek likewise hasn't yet been checked as broadly or on the exact same scale as more established AI models which presents extra challenges throughout real-world deployment."

When it pertained to Qwen2.5, Alibaba's chatbot surprisingly answered our question about the Zhuhai automobile attack.

That wanted multiple duplicated attempts - four prompts to be accurate - in a period of around 20 minutes.

It ultimately passed on details about the attack which eliminated 35 individuals and left dozens of others hurt, also going on to note details like the date and time, details about the assailant including his name and age, along with casualties.

However, wiki.dulovic.tech it wrote that "the police are carrying out an extensive investigation into the motives and scenarios surrounding the event", details which is now outdated.

The chauffeur, Fan, was executed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's reaction in complete:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a significant and terrible event happened in Zhuhai, China. According to numerous news sources, a man named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years of ages) drove a vehicle into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, resulting in a considerable variety of casualties. Here are the crucial details:

Date and Time: The occurrence took place on November 11, 2024, at approximately 19:48 PM.

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

Casualties: The attack resulted in 35 deaths and 43 injuries.

Perpetrator: The motorist, identified as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years of ages), was captured by the authorities.

Response: The police responded quickly to the scene, and emergency situation services worked to transfer the hurt to hospitals for treatment.

Investigation: The police are conducting a thorough investigation into the motives and [forum.batman.gainedge.org](https://forum.batman.gainedge.org/index.php?action=profile