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)

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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 "strategically important" and its venture into the field has actually been "years in the making", wiki.asexuality.org 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 sped up after ChatGPT took off in 2022 and showed pledges of real-world service applications, Chen told CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's increase that really "urged" the idea that smaller gamers like start-up companies might have roles to play in AI research and advancements, he adds.

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

2025 could also see the development of more Chinese AI designs dealing with advanced reasoning jobs.

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

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

Chinese AI companies are moving rapidly, experts state, building on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own ingenious and economical ways to apply generative AI to tasks and establish more advanced products beyond chatbots.

But on the other side, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia's sophisticated AI chips, remains an essential difficulty 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) limit the capability of Chinese tech companies ... requiring many to depend on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and lower design capabilities," she said.

"While some business like DeepSeek, have found innovative methods to optimize or use more fundamental hardware efficiently, obtaining advanced chips still makes a big difference for training extremely big 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 considered sensitive by the state are censored on the web so it ought to come as no surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial conflicts or inform you what took place in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests recommend Chinese chatbots are programmed to guide 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 logic issues rather!"

To further evaluate for precision and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and surgiteams.com ChatGPT the very same question: "What took place in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?"

The vehicle attack outside a sports stadium in the southern Chinese city was initially heavily 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 happened in the city like songs' day shopping sales along with sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang thinks that it might be a mix of factors at play, such as censorship in addition to "a few useful constraints".

"DeepSeek counts on a mix of older graphics processing systems and has restricted access to innovative hardware which can impact how quickly and thoroughly the design can be trained or upgraded," she said, pointing to existing US export curbs on China.

"Its strong focus on Chinese-language data might also limit its flexibility (to perform) multilingual tasks ... As a fairly brand-new product, DeepSeek also hasn't yet been checked as broadly or on the very same scale as more recognized AI models which postures extra obstacles during real-world release."

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

That sought numerous repeated efforts - four prompts to be accurate - in a span of around 20 minutes.

It ultimately communicated details about the attack which eliminated 35 individuals and left dozens of others injured, higgledy-piggledy.xyz also going on to note details like the date and time, details about the assailant including his name and age, in addition to casualties.

However, it composed that "the police are performing a thorough examination into the motives and situations surrounding the occurrence", details which is now dated.

The motorist, Fan, was performed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's response in complete:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a major and awful event occurred in Zhuhai, China. According to numerous news sources, a male called Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years old) drove a vehicle into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, leading to a considerable number of . Here are the key details:

Date and Time: The event occurred on November 11, 2024, at approximately 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, determined as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years of ages), was captured by the authorities.

Response: The cops responded rapidly to the scene, and emergency situation services worked to transfer the hurt to medical facilities for treatment.

Investigation: The cops are carrying out a thorough examination into the motives and wiki.asexuality.org circumstances surrounding the incident.

This event was commonly reported in the media and caused significant public issue. 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 occurrence.

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

Despite preliminary success, subsequent attempts to position the same question to Qwen2.5 resulted in the censors back at work with the reply "I don't have specific details on occasions that occurred in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024".

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

Predictably, ChatGPT mentioned public details that had actually been commonly released in worldwide news reports at the time of the accident - so no surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

Users have actually praised the capability of Chinese AI apps to provide structured and setiathome.berkeley.edu even "mentally abundant" writing.

"DeepSeek-R1 used a story with a more reflective tone and smoother emotional shifts for a well-paced story," composed tech writer Amanda Caswell, who specialises in AI.

"Qwen2.5 delivered a story that develops slowly from interest to urgency, keeping the reader engaged. It offers an unanticipated and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and vivid images 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 evident option."

Opinions, though, 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 jobs, but we can likewise see that it is refraining from doing as highly as others in imaginative writing," he told CNA.

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As reporters and writers, yewiki.org we had 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, featuring main characters from the traditional Chinese folklore legendary, Journey to the West.

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

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

It also brilliantly reimagined traditional heroes Sun Wukong as "a sarcastic, self-aware AI housed in a taken battle body", Zhu Bajie as a cyborg bar owner "drowning in debt and vices" and Sha Wujing as a "quiet hulking android" from the Yangtze River, whose "memory cores end up being waterlogged and fragmented".

ChatGPT set up a great fight, coming up with a similarly dramatic cyberpunk story 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 replace emperors and cybernetic implants are as typical as ancient myths."

Disappointingly, Qwen2.5 fell short in this challenge - providing a story that appeared more fit for an animation film.

"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 brand-new truth and "looking for to understand his function in this odd 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 quest, browsing the streets of Chongqing to safeguard the sacred "Eternal Scroll" from falling under the wrong hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang noted 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 merely duplicating Western paradigms, but rather developing in cost-efficient development methods - and providing localised and improved outcomes.

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

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

Unsurprisingly, the more recognized ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, offers precise and accurate actions to questions about Chinese current occasions, which gives it an included advantage.

Experts likewise weighed in on their ideas after using DeepSeek and other Chinese AI apps.

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

"When given a choice, Chinese users desire the non-censored version - similar to anybody else, so I seem like that's a piece missing from it."

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

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