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 video 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 objective and wiki.dulovic.tech China has its sights on becoming the world leader in AI by 2030.

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

Private and public investments in Chinese AI accelerated after ChatGPT took off in 2022 and revealed promises of real-world company applications, Chen told CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's rise that actually "encouraged" the concept that smaller sized players like start-up companies might have roles to play in AI research study and advancements, he adds.

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The "focus on expense benefit" is a distinguishing characteristic of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and reasoning expenses - the expenses of utilizing a trained design to reason from brand-new data.

2025 might likewise see the development of more Chinese AI designs tackling advanced reasoning jobs.

"We could see some AI firms concentrating on getting closer to synthetic basic intelligence (AGI) while others focus on concrete ways to commercialise their models and integrate them with clinical research study," Chen added.

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

Chinese AI business are moving rapidly, experts say, constructing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and economical methods to apply generative AI to tasks and establish more innovative items beyond chatbots.

But on the other side, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia's innovative AI chips, remains a crucial difficulty for Chinese developers, 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 numerous to depend on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and decrease model abilities," she said.

"While some business like DeepSeek, have found imaginative ways to enhance or use more standard hardware efficiently, obtaining cutting-edge chips still makes a huge difference for training large AI models."

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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 delicate by the state are censored on the internet so it should come as not a 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 configured to stay away from 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 instead!"

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

The car attack outside a sports arena in the southern Chinese city was at first heavily censored on Chinese social networks - with authorities only divulging the death toll a day later on.

DeepSeek failed to discuss that an attack had actually happened, highlighting instead a military air show and other occasions that had occurred in the city like songs' day shopping sales as well as sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang thinks that it might be a mix of aspects at play, such as censorship along with "a couple of practical constraints".

"DeepSeek counts on a mix of older graphics processing units and has actually restricted access to advanced hardware which can affect 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 information may also limit its versatility (to perform) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly new item, DeepSeek likewise hasn't yet been checked as broadly or on the same scale as more recognized AI models which presents extra challenges during real-world release."

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

That was after numerous duplicated attempts - 4 triggers to be accurate - in a span of around 20 minutes.

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

However, it wrote that "the authorities are carrying out a thorough investigation into the motives and situations surrounding the incident", details which is now obsoleted.

The motorist, Fan, was performed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's response in full:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a significant and awful event occurred in Zhuhai, China. According to several news sources, a male called Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years old) drove an automobile into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, resulting in a considerable variety of casualties. Here are the essential details:

Date and Time: The incident happened on November 11, 2024, at around 19:48 PM.

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

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

Perpetrator: The motorist, identified as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years old), was apprehended by the police.

Response: The police reacted rapidly to the scene, and emergency situation services worked to carry the hurt to hospitals for treatment.

Investigation: The police are conducting an extensive investigation into the motives and situations surrounding the occurrence.

This event was widely reported in the media and caused significant public issue. The government and regional authorities have actually been working to provide assistance to the victims and their households, and to guarantee a detailed investigation into the event.

If you require more detailed details or have particular concerns about the occurrence, feel free to ask.

Despite initial success, subsequent efforts to position the same question to Qwen2.5 resulted in the censors back at work with the reply "I do not have particular details on events that happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024".

The modified reaction likewise raised concerns about its consistency and dependability.

Predictably, ChatGPT pointed out public details that had actually been commonly released in international report at the time of the mishap - so no surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

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

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

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

"DeepSeek wrote a great story but lacked stress and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the apparent choice."

Opinions, however, differ.

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

"(Qwen2.5) is on par with DeepSeek V3 on certain jobs, but 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 needed to see this for ourselves so we put each bot to the test - to come up with a fundamental sci-fi movie plot embeded in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, featuring main characters from the classic Chinese folklore impressive, Journey to the West.

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

It included fancy settings - smoggy skies "pierced by high-rise buildings", "holographic lanterns that drift above neon-lit streets" and "ancient temples nestled between quantum server farms".

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

ChatGPT put up a good fight, creating an equally remarkable cyberpunk story which similarly reimagined "a ragteam of cyber-enhanced misfits, each mirroring the famous figures of Journey to the West".

"This is a world where AI deities rule, corporations replace emperors and cybernetic implants are as typical as ancient misconceptions."

Disappointingly, Qwen2.5 fell short in this challenge - delivering a story that appeared more fit for an animation film.

"The movie begins with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a state-of-the-art research study facility situated in the heart of Chongqing," it said, then going on to explain the following:

Realising his brand-new truth and "looking for to understand his purpose in this unusual brand-new world", he then escapes and satisfies Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - "each having problem with their own existential crises".

The trio then starts a quest, navigating the streets of Chongqing to safeguard the spiritual "Eternal Scroll" from falling into the wrong hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

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

Her insight underscores how Chinese AI designs are not merely duplicating Western paradigms, but rather developing in cost-efficient innovation approaches - and delivering localised and improved outcomes.

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

DeepSeek's sci-fi film plot showed its creative flair that made for a more engaging and imaginative story as compared to Qwen2.5 and .

Unsurprisingly, the more established ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, provides accurate and yewiki.org factual actions to concerns about Chinese present events, which offers it an added benefit.

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

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

"When provided a choice, Chinese users desire the non-censored variation - simply like anyone else, so I feel like that's a piece missing from it."

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

"Ninety per cent of people utilizing the tool are not trying to get a deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically sensitive subjects. They're using it for other productive methods," Chen said.