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)

This audio is produced by an AI tool.

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

China views AI as being "strategically crucial" 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 investments in Chinese AI accelerated after ChatGPT removed in 2022 and showed pledges of real-world service applications, Chen informed CNA.

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

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The "focus on expense benefit" is a distinctive feature of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and reasoning expenses - the costs of using a trained model to reason from brand-new information.

2025 could also see the development of more Chinese AI models dealing with innovative reasoning tasks.

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

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

Chinese AI business are moving rapidly, experts say, developing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and affordable 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 hurdle 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) restrict the ability of Chinese tech companies ... requiring numerous to count on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and reduce design capabilities," she said.

"While some business like DeepSeek, have discovered creative ways to enhance or use more standard hardware efficiently, obtaining innovative chips still makes a huge distinction for training large AI models."

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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 deemed delicate by the state are censored on the internet so it ought to come as no surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disagreements or tell you what happened 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 type of concern yet. Let's chat about math, coding, and logic problems instead!"

To even more test for precision 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 networks - with authorities just disclosing the death toll a day later on.

DeepSeek failed to discuss that an attack had happened, highlighting instead a military air show and other events that had happened in the city like singles' day shopping sales in addition to sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang thinks that it might be a mix of elements at play, such as censorship along with "a couple of useful 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 extensively the design can be trained or updated," she said, pointing to existing US export curbs on China.

"Its strong focus on Chinese-language information may likewise limit its adaptability (to carry out) multilingual tasks ... As a fairly brand-new item, DeepSeek likewise hasn't yet been checked as broadly or on the very same scale as more recognized AI designs which poses extra challenges during real-world implementation."

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

That sought numerous repeated efforts - 4 triggers to be precise - in a period of around 20 minutes.

It ultimately communicated details about the attack which eliminated 35 people and it-viking.ch left lots of others hurt, also going on to list details like the date and systemcheck-wiki.de time, details about the assailant including his name and age, in addition to casualties.

However, it wrote that "the police are conducting an extensive investigation into the motives and circumstances surrounding the occurrence", details which is now obsoleted.

The motorist, Fan, was performed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's reaction completely:

Answer: photorum.eclat-mauve.fr On Nov 11, 2024, a significant and tragic incident took place in Zhuhai, China. According to multiple news sources, a man called Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years of ages) drove a vehicle into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, leading to a substantial variety of casualties. Here are the essential details:

Date and Time: The occurrence occurred on November 11, 2024, at roughly 19:48 PM.

Location: Zhuhai Sports Center, in the Xiangzhou District of Zhuhai.

Casualties: The attack led to 35 deaths and 43 injuries.

Perpetrator: The driver, identified as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years of ages), was nabbed by the cops.

Response: The authorities responded rapidly to the scene, and emergency services worked to carry the hurt to healthcare facilities for treatment.

Investigation: The authorities are carrying out a thorough examination into the intentions and situations surrounding the occurrence.

This event was extensively reported in the media and triggered significant public concern. The federal government and regional authorities have been working to provide assistance to the victims and their families, and to ensure a detailed examination into the incident.

If you require more detailed details or have particular concerns about the event, feel totally free to ask.

Despite initial success, subsequent efforts to pose the exact same question to Qwen2.5 resulted in the censors back at work with the reply "I don't have specific details on events that happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024".

The transformed response also raised questions about its consistency and reliability.

Predictably, ChatGPT cited public details that had actually been widely released in international 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 "mentally rich" writing.

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

"Qwen2.5 provided a story that builds slowly from curiosity to urgency, keeping the reader engaged. It provides an unanticipated and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and vibrant imagery for the setting," she said, including that Qwen2.5 eventually "crafted a more cinematic, emotionally rich story with a more significant twist".

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

Opinions, however, differ.

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

"(Qwen2.5) is on par with DeepSeek V3 on certain tasks, but we can also see that it is refraining from doing as strongly as others in imaginative writing," he told CNA.

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As reporters 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 motion picture plot embeded 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 appealing story embeded in the year 2145 titled, "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 likewise remarkably reimagined conventional heroes Sun Wukong as "an ironical, self-aware AI housed in a taken fight body", Zhu Bajie as a cyborg nightclub owner "drowning in debt and vices" and Sha Wujing as a "silent hulking android" from the Yangtze River, whose "memory cores become waterlogged and fragmented".

ChatGPT set up a good battle, coming up with an equally dramatic cyberpunk storyline which likewise reimagined "a ragteam of cyber-enhanced misfits, each mirroring the legendary 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 misconceptions."

Disappointingly, Qwen2.5 fell short in this difficulty - providing a story that appeared more matched for wiki.snooze-hotelsoftware.de an animation movie.

"The film starts with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a state-of-the-art research facility situated in the heart of Chongqing," it said, then going on to explain the following:

Realising his new truth and "looking for to understand his purpose in this weird brand-new world", he then gets away and satisfies Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - "each having a hard time with their own existential crises".

The trio then starts a mission, navigating the streets of Chongqing to secure the spiritual "Eternal Scroll" from falling under the wrong hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang kept in mind that it was "hard to make a definitive statement" about which bot was best, adding that each displayed its own strengths in different areas, "such as language focus, training information and hardware optimization".

Her insight highlights how Chinese AI designs are not simply replicating Western paradigms, but rather developing in affordable innovation methods - and providing localised and improved outcomes.

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

DeepSeek's sci-fi movie plot showed its imaginative flair that produced a more engaging and wiki.snooze-hotelsoftware.de creative narrative as compared to Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT's efforts.

Unsurprisingly, the more recognized ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, supplies precise and accurate responses to questions about Chinese existing occasions, which offers it an included benefit.

Experts also weighed in on their thoughts after utilizing DeepSeek and other Chinese AI apps.

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

"When offered an option, Chinese users want the non-censored version - simply like anyone 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, particularly for Chinese users.

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