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

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Bong Xin Ying

Lakeisha Leo

WHAT lags 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 becoming the world leader in AI by 2030.

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

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

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The "focus on cost benefit" is a distinctive feature of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and inference costs - the costs of using a trained model to draw conclusions from brand-new data.

2025 could likewise see the development of more Chinese AI models dealing with innovative thinking tasks.

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

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

Chinese AI business are moving quickly, experts say, constructing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and cost-effective ways to apply generative AI to tasks and establish more sophisticated products beyond chatbots.

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

"US export controls (still) limit the ability of Chinese tech business ... forcing many to depend on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and decrease design capabilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have discovered innovative ways to enhance or utilize more standard hardware effectively, obtaining cutting-edge chips still makes a huge 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, subjects considered delicate by the state are censored on the internet so it ought to come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial conflicts or inform you what occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests recommend Chinese chatbots are programmed to stay away from 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 reasoning problems instead!"

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

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

DeepSeek failed to point out that an attack had happened, highlighting rather a military air program and other events that had actually happened 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 elements at play, yewiki.org such as censorship along with "a few practical constraints".

"DeepSeek counts on a mix of older graphics processing units and has limited access to cutting-edge hardware which can affect how quickly and thoroughly the design can be trained or upgraded," she said, pointing to existing US export curbs on China.

"Its strong concentrate on Chinese-language data may likewise restrict its flexibility (to perform) multilingual tasks ... As a fairly new item, DeepSeek likewise hasn't yet been checked as broadly or on the very same scale as more established AI designs which poses extra challenges throughout real-world deployment."

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

That was after numerous repeated efforts - 4 prompts to be precise - in a period of around 20 minutes.

It ultimately communicated details about the attack which killed 35 individuals and left dozens of others injured, likewise 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 police are performing a comprehensive examination into the motives and situations surrounding the incident", details which is now obsoleted.

The chauffeur, Fan, was carried out last month.

This is Qwen2.5's reaction in full:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a significant and tragic occurrence happened in Zhuhai, China. According to multiple news sources, a guy named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years old) drove an automobile into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, resulting in a considerable number of casualties. Here are the essential details:

Date and Time: The incident 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 driver, recognized as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years of ages), was captured by the police.

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

Investigation: The police are performing a thorough examination into the motives and scenarios surrounding the occurrence.

This occasion was widely reported in the media and triggered significant public issue. The government and local authorities have actually been working to supply support to the victims and their families, and [forum.batman.gainedge.org](https://forum.batman.gainedge.org/index.php?action=profile