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 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 essential" and its foray into the field has 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 financial investments in Chinese AI accelerated after ChatGPT removed in 2022 and revealed promises of real-world organization applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's increase that really "encouraged" the concept that smaller players like start-up companies could have functions to play in AI research study and advancements, he includes.

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The "focus on cost benefit" is a distinguishing characteristic of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and reasoning costs - the expenses of using a trained model to draw conclusions from brand-new information.

2025 might also see the emergence of more Chinese AI models tackling advanced thinking tasks.

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

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

Chinese AI business are moving quickly, experts state, constructing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and economical ways to use generative AI to jobs and develop advanced products beyond chatbots.

But on the other side, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia's advanced AI chips, remains an essential hurdle for Chinese designers, noted Dr Marina Zhang, an associate professor at University of Technology Sydney's (UTS) Australia-China Relations Institute.

"US export controls (still) restrict the ability of Chinese tech business ... requiring numerous to rely on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and minimize design abilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have actually found creative ways to optimize or use more standard hardware effectively, obtaining advanced chips still makes a huge distinction for training large 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, subjects considered delicate by the state are censored on the web so it should come as no surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial conflicts or tell you what occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests suggest Chinese chatbots are set 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 math, coding, and logic problems rather!"

To further evaluate for accuracy and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the exact same concern: "What happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?"

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

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

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

"DeepSeek counts on a mix of older graphics processing systems and has actually limited access to advanced hardware which can affect how rapidly and thoroughly the design can be trained or updated," she said, pointing to existing US export curbs on China.

"Its strong focus on Chinese-language data may also restrict its versatility (to perform) multilingual tasks ... As a fairly brand-new product, DeepSeek also hasn't yet been tested as broadly or on the same scale as more recognized AI models which postures extra difficulties throughout real-world implementation."

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

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

It eventually passed on details about the attack which eliminated 35 people and left lots of others injured, [forum.batman.gainedge.org](https://forum.batman.gainedge.org/index.php?action=profile