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)

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Bong Xin Ying

Lakeisha Leo

WHAT'S BEHIND CHINA'S AI BOOM?

Transforming the nation into a tech superpower has actually 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 venture into the field has actually been "years in the making", said Chen Qiheng, an affiliated scientist at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for setiathome.berkeley.edu China Analysis.

Private and public financial investments in Chinese AI sped up after ChatGPT took off in 2022 and revealed promises of real-world business applications, Chen informed CNA.

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

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

2025 might likewise see the introduction of more Chinese AI designs taking on innovative reasoning tasks.

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

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

Chinese AI companies are moving quickly, links.gtanet.com.br analysts state, constructing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own ingenious and economical methods to use generative AI to jobs and establish more sophisticated products beyond chatbots.

But on the flip side, access to high-end hardware, particularly Nvidia's innovative AI chips, remains a crucial 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 ability of Chinese tech companies ... requiring lots of to depend on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and lower model abilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have actually found creative ways to optimize or use more fundamental hardware effectively, obtaining innovative chips still makes a big difference for training 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, subjects considered sensitive by the state are censored on the internet so it should come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disagreements or tell you what took place in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests suggest Chinese chatbots are programmed to steer clear of 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 reasoning issues instead!"

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

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

DeepSeek failed to point out that an attack had happened, highlighting instead a military air program and [forum.batman.gainedge.org](https://forum.batman.gainedge.org/index.php?action=profile