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)

This audio is produced by an AI tool.

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 "tactically important" and its venture 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 showed pledges of real-world organization applications, Chen informed CNA.

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

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The "emphasis on expense benefit" is a distinctive feature of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and inference costs - the costs of utilizing a trained design to reason from brand-new information.

2025 might likewise see the emergence of more Chinese AI designs taking on innovative thinking jobs.

"We could see some AI firms focusing on getting closer to synthetic general intelligence (AGI) while others concentrate on concrete ways to commercialise their designs and integrate them with scientific research," Chen included.

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

Chinese AI companies are moving quickly, experts state, building on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own ingenious and cost-efficient ways to apply generative AI to tasks and develop advanced items beyond chatbots.

But on the other side, access to high-end hardware, particularly Nvidia's sophisticated AI chips, remains a key 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 ... requiring lots of to depend on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and reduce design capabilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have discovered innovative ways to optimize or use more standard hardware effectively, obtaining innovative chips still makes a huge distinction for training huge 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, subjects deemed sensitive by the state are censored on the web so it must come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial conflicts or tell you what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests recommend 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 kind of question yet. Let's chat about math, coding, and logic problems rather!"

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

The cars and truck attack outside a sports arena in the southern Chinese city was at first greatly censored on Chinese social media - with authorities only disclosing the death toll a day later on.

DeepSeek failed to mention that an attack had happened, highlighting instead a military air program and other occasions that had happened 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 along with "a couple of practical constraints".

"DeepSeek relies on a mix of older graphics processing units and has limited access to innovative hardware which can impact how quickly and extensively the design can be trained or updated," she said, indicating existing US export curbs on China.

"Its strong focus on Chinese-language information may also restrict its flexibility (to bring out) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly new item, DeepSeek also hasn't yet been checked as broadly or on the same scale as more established AI models which positions additional challenges during real-world release."

When it pertained to Qwen2.5, Alibaba's chatbot surprisingly addressed our concern about the Zhuhai cars and truck attack.

That sought several duplicated efforts - 4 prompts to be exact - in a span of around 20 minutes.

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

However, it wrote that "the authorities are performing a comprehensive investigation into the intentions and circumstances surrounding the occurrence", details which is now dated.

The driver, Fan, was carried out last month.

This is Qwen2.5's response in complete:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a significant and awful incident took place in Zhuhai, China. According to several news sources, a guy called Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years of ages) drove a cars and truck into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, resulting in a considerable variety of casualties. Here are the key details:

Date and Time: The event happened on November 11, 2024, at around 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 motorist, determined as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years old), was collared by the authorities.

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

Investigation: The police are conducting a thorough examination into the motives and circumstances surrounding the event.

This event was commonly reported in the media and triggered significant public concern. The government and local authorities have actually been working to provide assistance to the victims and their households, and to make sure a detailed investigation into the event.

If you require more detailed details or have specific questions about the event, feel complimentary to ask.

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

The transformed response likewise raised concerns about its consistency and dependability.

Predictably, ChatGPT pointed out public details that had been extensively released in worldwide news reports at the time of the accident - so not a surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

Users have praised the capability of AI apps to provide structured and even "emotionally rich" writing.

"DeepSeek-R1 offered a story with a more introspective tone and smoother psychological 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 unforeseen and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and vibrant images for the setting," she said, including that Qwen2.5 ultimately "crafted a more cinematic, mentally rich story with a more significant twist".

"DeepSeek wrote an excellent story however did not have tension and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the obvious choice."

Opinions, setiathome.berkeley.edu however, vary.

Chen believes 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 innovative 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 fundamental sci-fi movie plot set in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, including main characters from the timeless Chinese folklore impressive, Journey to the West.

True to form, DeepSeek developed an appealing storyline set in the year 2145 entitled, "Neon Pilgrimage: The Silicon Sutra" - which sees "a future where Buddhism combines with quantum computing".

It included fancy settings - smoggy skies "pierced by skyscrapers", "holographic lanterns that float above neon-lit streets" and "ancient temples nestled in between quantum server farms".

It likewise remarkably reimagined standard heroes Sun Wukong as "an ironical, self-aware AI housed in a stolen battle body", Zhu Bajie as a cyborg bar owner "drowning in financial obligation and vices" and Sha Wujing as a "silent hulking android" from the Yangtze River, whose "memory cores become waterlogged and fragmented".

ChatGPT put up a great battle, creating a similarly remarkable cyberpunk storyline which similarly reimagined "a ragteam of cyber-enhanced misfits, each matching the legendary 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 myths."

Disappointingly, Qwen2.5 fell short in this obstacle - delivering a story that seemed more matched for an animation film.

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

Realising his new reality and "seeking to understand his function in this odd brand-new world", he then leaves and satisfies Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - "each fighting with their own existential crises".

The trio then embarks on a mission, navigating the streets of Chongqing to safeguard the sacred "Eternal Scroll" from falling into the wrong hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang noted that it was "hard to make a conclusive declaration" about which bot was best, including that each showed its own strengths in various areas, "such as language focus, training data and hardware optimization".

Her insight highlights how Chinese AI designs are not simply reproducing Western paradigms, but rather progressing in economical development approaches - and delivering localised and improved outcomes.

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

DeepSeek's sci-fi movie plot showed its imaginative flair that produced a more appealing and creative story as compared to Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT's efforts.

Unsurprisingly, the more established ChatGPT, it-viking.ch unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, provides accurate and accurate actions to concerns about Chinese present occasions, which gives it an included benefit.

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

"DeepSeek is at a downside when it pertains to censorship constraints," kept in mind Isaac Stone Fish, founder and CEO of the research study company Strategy Risks.

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

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

"Ninety percent of people using the tool are not trying to get a much deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically sensitive subjects. They're utilizing it for other productive ways," Chen said.