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)

This audio is produced by an AI tool.

Bong Xin Ying

Lakeisha Leo

WHAT'S BEHIND 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 ending up being the world leader in AI by 2030.

China views AI as being "tactically important" and its foray into the field has actually 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 financial investments in Chinese AI accelerated after ChatGPT removed in 2022 and revealed guarantees of real-world service applications, Chen told CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's rise that really "encouraged" the idea that smaller sized players like start-up firms might have functions to play in AI research study and developments, he includes.

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The "focus on expense benefit" is an unique feature of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and reasoning costs - the expenses of utilizing a trained model to reason from new data.

2025 might likewise see the emergence of more Chinese AI models dealing with sophisticated reasoning jobs.

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

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

Chinese AI business are moving rapidly, experts state, building on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own ingenious and cost-efficient methods to apply generative AI to jobs and develop more advanced products beyond chatbots.

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

"US export controls (still) restrict the ability of Chinese tech business ... requiring numerous to depend on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and reduce model abilities," she said.

"While some business like DeepSeek, have discovered innovative methods to enhance or utilize more fundamental hardware effectively, obtaining cutting-edge chips still makes a big difference for training huge AI models."

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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, topics deemed 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 happened 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 logic problems instead!"

To even more evaluate for precision and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the exact same question: "What took place 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 disclosing the death toll a day later.

DeepSeek failed to point out that an attack had actually occurred, highlighting rather a military air program and bio.rogstecnologia.com.br other occasions that had occurred in the city like songs' day shopping sales in addition to sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang thinks that it might be a mix of elements at play, such as censorship in addition to "a few practical constraints".

"DeepSeek depends on a mix of older graphics processing systems and has actually limited access to advanced hardware which can impact how rapidly and extensively the design can be trained or updated," she said, pointing to existing US export curbs on China.

"Its strong focus on Chinese-language information might also limit its versatility (to carry out) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly new product, DeepSeek likewise hasn't yet been tested as broadly or on the exact same scale as more recognized AI designs which poses extra difficulties during real-world release."

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

That wanted several duplicated attempts - 4 triggers to be exact - in a period of around 20 minutes.

It ultimately relayed 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, along with casualties.

However, it wrote that "the authorities are performing an extensive examination into the motives and scenarios surrounding the occurrence", details which is now obsoleted.

The driver, Fan, was carried out last month.

This is Qwen2.5's response in complete:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a major and awful incident took place in Zhuhai, China. According to multiple news sources, a man called Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years old) drove an automobile into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, resulting in a substantial variety of casualties. Here are the key details:

Date and Time: The event happened on November 11, 2024, at roughly 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 chauffeur, determined as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years of ages), was captured by the cops.

Response: The cops responded quickly to the scene, and emergency services worked to carry the hurt to hospitals for treatment.

Investigation: The authorities are performing a comprehensive investigation into the motives and links.gtanet.com.br scenarios surrounding the incident.

This occasion was extensively reported in the media and caused substantial public concern. The government and local authorities have actually been working to supply assistance to the victims and their households, and to guarantee a detailed investigation into the incident.

If you require more detailed details or have particular concerns about the incident, do not hesitate to ask.

Despite preliminary success, subsequent efforts to pose the exact same concern to Qwen2.5 resulted in the censors back at work with the reply "I don't have particular details on occasions that occurred in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024".

The modified action likewise raised questions about its consistency and reliability.

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

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

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

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

"Qwen2.5 delivered a story that develops slowly from interest to seriousness, keeping the reader engaged. It offers an unanticipated and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and vivid imagery for the setting," she said, adding that Qwen2.5 ultimately "crafted a more cinematic, emotionally abundant story with a more significant twist".

"DeepSeek wrote an excellent story however lacked stress and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the apparent choice."

Opinions, however, vary.

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 tasks, however we can also see that it is refraining from doing as highly as others in creative writing," he told CNA.

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As journalists and writers, we had to see this for ourselves so we put each bot to the test - to come up with a basic sci-fi movie plot embeded in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, featuring main characters from the timeless Chinese folklore epic, Journey to the West.

True to form, DeepSeek created an appealing story embeded in the year 2145 entitled, "Neon Pilgrimage: The Silicon Sutra" - which sees "a future where Buddhism merges with quantum computing".

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

It also remarkably reimagined traditional heroes Sun Wukong as "an ironical, self-aware AI housed in a taken fight body", Zhu Bajie as a cyborg club owner "drowning in financial obligation and vices" and Sha Wujing as a "quiet hulking android" from the Yangtze River, [forum.batman.gainedge.org](https://forum.batman.gainedge.org/index.php?action=profile