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 goal and China has its sights on ending up being 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 public financial investments in Chinese AI sped up after ChatGPT took off in 2022 and showed promises of real-world company applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's rise that actually "urged" the idea that smaller players like start-up firms might have roles to play in AI research and advancements, he includes.

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The "emphasis on expense advantage" is a distinguishing characteristic of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and inference costs - the expenses of using a trained design to reason from brand-new data.

2025 could likewise see the emergence of more Chinese AI designs dealing with advanced reasoning tasks.

"We might see some AI companies concentrating on getting closer to synthetic general intelligence (AGI) while others focus on concrete methods to commercialise their designs and incorporate 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, building on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and cost-efficient methods to use generative AI to jobs and hb9lc.org establish more sophisticated products beyond chatbots.

But on the flip side, access to high-end hardware, particularly Nvidia's innovative AI chips, remains a key obstacle for 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 capability of Chinese tech business ... forcing many to rely on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and decrease design abilities," she said.

"While some business like DeepSeek, have found creative methods to optimize or use more standard hardware effectively, obtaining cutting-edge 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, topics considered sensitive by the state are censored on the internet so it must come as no surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disputes or tell you what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests suggest Chinese chatbots are set 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 logic problems rather!"

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

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

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

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

"DeepSeek counts on a mix of older graphics processing units and has restricted access to cutting-edge hardware which can impact how rapidly 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 may also restrict its adaptability (to perform) 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 additional difficulties during real-world release."

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

That was after several duplicated efforts - four triggers to be accurate - in a period of around 20 minutes.

It ultimately passed on details about the attack which eliminated 35 people and left dozens of others injured, likewise going on to note 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 examination into the motives and scenarios surrounding the event", details which is now obsoleted.

The motorist, Fan, was executed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's response in complete:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a major and tragic event took place in Zhuhai, China. According to numerous news sources, a guy named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, higgledy-piggledy.xyz 62 years old) drove a car into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, resulting in a considerable number of casualties. Here are the key details:

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

Response: The cops reacted rapidly to the scene, and emergency services worked to transfer the injured to medical facilities for treatment.

Investigation: The police are performing a comprehensive investigation into the motives and situations surrounding the occurrence.

This event was commonly reported in the media and caused significant public concern. The federal government and local authorities have actually been working to provide assistance to the victims and their households, and to ensure a into the event.

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

Despite preliminary success, subsequent efforts to present the very same question to Qwen2.5 resulted in the censors back at work with the reply "I do not have specific details on occasions that happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024".

The modified action also raised concerns about its consistency and dependability.

Predictably, ChatGPT cited public details that had actually been extensively released in worldwide news reports at the time of the accident - so not a surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

Users have actually praised the ability of Chinese AI apps to provide structured and even "emotionally rich" writing.

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

"Qwen2.5 provided a story that develops gradually 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 ultimately "crafted a more cinematic, emotionally abundant story with a more substantial twist".

"DeepSeek composed a great story but did not have stress and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the evident choice."

Opinions, setiathome.berkeley.edu however, vary.

Chen believes that Qwen2.5 does not carry out as strongly 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.

Related:

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As journalists and writers, we needed to see this for ourselves so we put each bot to the test - to come up with a fundamental sci-fi film plot set in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, including main characters from the timeless Chinese folklore impressive, Journey to the West.

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

It included elaborate 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 brilliantly reimagined conventional heroes Sun Wukong as "a sarcastic, self-aware AI housed in a taken battle body", Zhu Bajie as a cyborg club 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 battle, creating a similarly remarkable cyberpunk storyline which likewise reimagined "a ragteam of cyber-enhanced misfits, each mirroring the famous figures of Journey to the West".

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

Disappointingly, Qwen2.5 fell short in this difficulty - delivering a storyline that appeared more suited for an animation movie.

"The motion picture begins with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a high-tech research study center located in the heart of Chongqing," it said, then going on to explain the following:

Realising his new reality and "looking for to comprehend his function in this odd new world", he then gets away and meets Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - "each having problem with their own existential crises".

The trio then embarks on a quest, browsing the streets of Chongqing to safeguard the sacred "Eternal Scroll" from falling into the incorrect 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 locations, "such as language focus, training information and hardware optimization".

Her insight underscores how Chinese AI designs are not just duplicating Western paradigms, oeclub.org but rather developing in economical innovation methods - and [forum.batman.gainedge.org](https://forum.batman.gainedge.org/index.php?action=profile