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)

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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 goal and China has its sights on becoming the world leader in AI by 2030.

China views AI as being "strategically important" and its foray into the field has actually been "years in the making", said Chen Qiheng, an affiliated 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 pledges of real-world service applications, Chen told CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's increase that truly "urged" the concept that smaller sized gamers like start-up firms might have functions to play in AI research and developments, he adds.

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The "focus on cost advantage" is a distinguishing characteristic of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and reasoning costs - the costs of utilizing a trained model to draw conclusions from new data.

2025 could also see the development of more Chinese AI designs dealing with advanced thinking jobs.

"We might see some AI companies concentrating on getting closer to artificial general intelligence (AGI) while others focus on concrete ways to commercialise their models and integrate them with clinical research study," Chen included.

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

Chinese AI companies are moving rapidly, analysts state, developing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and cost-effective methods to use generative AI to tasks and establish more sophisticated items beyond chatbots.

But on the other hand, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia's advanced AI chips, remains a crucial difficulty 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 lots of to rely on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and reduce model abilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have found innovative ways to enhance or utilize more fundamental hardware efficiently, obtaining innovative chips still makes a big difference for training huge 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 considered delicate by the state are censored on the internet so it need to 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 programmed to avoid domestic politics.

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

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

The cars and truck attack outside a sports arena in the southern Chinese city was initially heavily censored on Chinese social media - with authorities just revealing the death toll a day later.

DeepSeek failed to discuss that an attack had taken place, highlighting instead a military air program and other events that had taken place in the city like singles' day shopping sales as well as sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang thinks that it might be a mix of factors at play, such as censorship as well as "a few practical constraints".

"DeepSeek relies on a mix of older graphics processing units and has actually limited access to innovative hardware which can affect how rapidly and extensively 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 likewise limit its adaptability (to bring out) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly brand-new product, DeepSeek also hasn't yet been evaluated as broadly or on the exact same scale as more recognized AI models which poses extra difficulties throughout real-world release."

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

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

It eventually communicated details about the attack which eliminated 35 people and left dozens of others injured, also going on to list details like the date and time, details about the assailant including his name and age, in addition to casualties.

However, it composed that "the police are conducting an extensive investigation into the intentions and circumstances surrounding the incident", details which is now outdated.

The chauffeur, Fan, was executed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's response completely:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a significant and awful occurrence occurred in Zhuhai, China. According to several news sources, a guy called Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years of ages) drove a car into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, leading to a substantial variety of casualties. Here are the essential details:

Date and Time: The event occurred 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 motorist, determined as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years of ages), was collared by the authorities.

Response: The authorities responded quickly to the scene, and emergency services worked to transfer the hurt to medical facilities for treatment.

Investigation: The police are performing a comprehensive investigation into the intentions and situations surrounding the incident.

This occasion was widely reported in the media and triggered substantial public concern. The government and local authorities have been working to provide support to the victims and their households, and to guarantee a detailed examination into the incident.

If you need more detailed details or have particular concerns about the incident, larsaluarna.se feel totally free to ask.

Despite initial success, subsequent attempts to pose the same concern to Qwen2.5 led to the censors back at work with the reply "I do not have particular details on occasions that occurred in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024".

The transformed response 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 mishap - so not a surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

Users have actually the ability of Chinese AI apps to deliver structured and even "emotionally abundant" writing.

"DeepSeek-R1 provided a story with a more introspective tone and smoother emotional transitions for a well-paced story," wrote 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 unanticipated and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and brilliant imagery for the setting," she said, including that Qwen2.5 eventually "crafted a more cinematic, emotionally abundant story with a more significant twist".

"DeepSeek composed a good story however lacked tension and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the apparent choice."

Opinions, however, vary.

Chen believes that Qwen2.5 does not perform as highly as DeepSeek and ChatGPT when it pertains to creative writing.

"(Qwen2.5) is on par with DeepSeek V3 on certain jobs, but we can likewise see that it is refraining from doing as highly as others in creative writing," he informed CNA.

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As journalists and authors, we needed to see this for ourselves so we put each bot to the test - to come up with a standard sci-fi film plot set in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, featuring main characters from the traditional Chinese folklore impressive, 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 consisted of 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 "an ironical, self-aware AI housed in a taken combat 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 battle, coming up with a similarly significant 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 guideline, corporations change emperors and cybernetic implants are as typical as ancient misconceptions."

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

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

Realising his new reality and "looking for to understand his function in this unusual new world", he then gets away and fulfills Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - "each fighting 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 "challenging to make a definitive statement" about which bot was best, including that each showed its own strengths in various locations, "such as language focus, training data and hardware optimization".

Her insight highlights how Chinese AI designs are not merely reproducing Western paradigms, but rather evolving in economical innovation methods - and providing localised and enhanced outcomes.

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

DeepSeek's sci-fi motion picture plot showed its creative flair that produced a more interesting and imaginative narrative as compared to Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT's efforts.

Unsurprisingly, the more recognized ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, provides accurate and wiki.vst.hs-furtwangen.de factual actions to questions about Chinese current occasions, which offers it an included advantage.

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

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

"When given an option, Chinese users desire the non-censored version - simply like anybody else, so I feel like that's a piece missing out on from it."

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

"Ninety per cent of individuals utilizing the tool are not attempting to get a much deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically delicate subjects. They're using it for other efficient means," Chen said.