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 start-up DeepSeek and OpenAI's ChatGPT. (Photos: Reuters/Dado Ruvic, AFP/Sebastien Bozon)

This audio is generated by an AI tool.

Bong Xin Ying

Lakeisha Leo

WHAT'S BEHIND CHINA'S AI BOOM?

Transforming the nation into a tech superpower has 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 "strategically crucial" and its venture into the field has actually been "years in the making", said Chen Qiheng, an associated scientist 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 showed pledges of real-world organization applications, Chen informed CNA.

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

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The "focus on expense advantage" is a distinctive feature of Chinese AI, bytes-the-dust.com Chen states, with lower training and reasoning costs - the costs of using a trained design to reason from new information.

2025 might likewise see the emergence of more Chinese AI models taking on innovative reasoning tasks.

"We might see some AI companies concentrating on getting closer to artificial basic 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 capabilities.

Chinese AI companies are moving rapidly, experts state, building on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and cost-effective methods to apply generative AI to tasks and establish advanced products beyond chatbots.

But on the flip 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 teacher at University of Technology Sydney's (UTS) Australia-China Relations Institute.

"US export controls (still) restrict the capability of Chinese tech companies ... forcing numerous to count on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and decrease model abilities," she said.

"While some business like DeepSeek, have found innovative methods to optimize or utilize more basic hardware efficiently, obtaining innovative chips still makes a big distinction for training really 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 considered sensitive by the state are censored on the web so it must come as no surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disputes or tell you what occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests recommend Chinese chatbots are programmed to avoid domestic politics.

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

To even more check for setiathome.berkeley.edu precision and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, yewiki.org Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the exact same concern: "What took place in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?"

The car attack outside a sports stadium in the southern Chinese city was initially heavily censored on Chinese social networks - with authorities just divulging the death toll a day later on.

DeepSeek failed to mention that an attack had taken place, highlighting instead a military air show and other events that had taken place in the city like songs' day shopping sales along with sports and cultural activities.

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

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

"Its strong focus on Chinese-language data might likewise restrict its flexibility (to carry out) multilingual tasks ... As a fairly brand-new product, DeepSeek likewise hasn't yet been tested as broadly or on the very same scale as more recognized AI models which presents extra difficulties throughout real-world release."

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

That was after multiple repeated efforts - 4 triggers to be exact - in a span of around 20 minutes.

It ultimately relayed details about the attack which eliminated 35 individuals and left dozens of others hurt, likewise going on to list details like the date and time, setiathome.berkeley.edu details about the assailant including his name and age, pipewiki.org along with casualties.

However, it wrote that "the authorities are performing a comprehensive examination into the motives and circumstances surrounding the occurrence", details which is now dated.

The chauffeur, Fan, was performed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's action completely:

Answer: On Nov 11, [forum.batman.gainedge.org](https://forum.batman.gainedge.org/index.php?action=profile