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 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 nation into a tech superpower has 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 important" and its venture into the field has actually been "years in the making", said Chen Qiheng, hb9lc.org an associated 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 promises of real-world business applications, Chen told CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's rise that really "urged" the concept that smaller sized players like start-up firms could have roles to play in AI research and developments, he includes.

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The "emphasis on expense advantage" is a distinct function of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and inference costs - the expenses of utilizing a trained model to reason from new information.

2025 might likewise see the development of more Chinese AI designs taking on innovative thinking tasks.

"We might see some AI firms concentrating on getting closer to artificial basic intelligence (AGI) while others focus on concrete ways to commercialise their models and integrate them with clinical research," Chen added.

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

Chinese AI companies are moving quickly, experts say, constructing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own ingenious and archmageriseswiki.com cost-effective ways to apply generative AI to tasks and develop advanced products beyond chatbots.

But on the flip side, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia's innovative AI chips, remains an essential hurdle 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 numerous to depend on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and decrease model capabilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have actually found imaginative ways to enhance or utilize more fundamental hardware efficiently, obtaining cutting-edge chips still makes a big difference 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 sensitive by the state are censored on the internet so it ought to come as no surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disputes or inform you what took place in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests suggest 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 instead!"

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

The vehicle attack outside a sports stadium in the southern Chinese city was at first heavily censored on Chinese social media - with authorities only disclosing the death toll a day later on.

DeepSeek failed to discuss that an attack had actually happened, highlighting instead a military air show and other occasions that had taken place in the city like songs' day shopping sales along with sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang thinks that it may be a mix of aspects at play, such as censorship in addition to "a couple of useful constraints".

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

"Its strong concentrate on Chinese-language data might likewise restrict its versatility (to perform) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly brand-new product, DeepSeek also hasn't yet been tested as broadly or on the same scale as more established AI models which presents extra difficulties throughout real-world deployment."

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

That was after multiple duplicated attempts - 4 prompts to be accurate - in a period of around 20 minutes.

It ultimately passed on details about the attack which killed 35 people and left dozens of others injured, also going on to list details like the date and time, details about the assailant including his name and age, along with casualties.

However, it composed that "the police are carrying out a comprehensive examination into the motives and circumstances surrounding the occurrence", details which is now dated.

The driver, Fan, was carried out last month.

This is Qwen2.5's action completely:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a major and tragic occurrence occurred in Zhuhai, China. According to several news sources, a male called Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years of ages) drove an automobile into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, resulting in a significant variety of casualties. Here are the essential details:

Date and Time: The occurrence took place on November 11, 2024, wiki.snooze-hotelsoftware.de 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 chauffeur, identified as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years old), was collared by the police.

Response: The authorities reacted quickly to the scene, and emergency services worked to transport the injured to medical facilities for treatment.

Investigation: The authorities are performing an extensive examination into the motives and circumstances surrounding the event.

This event was extensively reported in the media and triggered considerable public concern. The federal government and regional authorities have been working to offer assistance to the victims and their households, and to ensure a detailed examination into the occurrence.

If you need more detailed details or have specific questions about the event, do not hesitate to ask.

Despite initial success, subsequent efforts to present the very same question to Qwen2.5 resulted in the censors back at work with the reply "I do not have particular details on events that took place in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024".

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

Predictably, ChatGPT mentioned public details that had been commonly published in worldwide report at the time of the accident - so no surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

Users have actually praised the ability of Chinese AI apps to provide structured and wiki.snooze-hotelsoftware.de even "mentally rich" writing.

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

"Qwen2.5 provided a story that develops slowly from interest to seriousness, keeping the reader engaged. It uses an unexpected and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and vivid images for the setting," she said, including that Qwen2.5 ultimately "crafted a more cinematic, mentally rich story with a more substantial twist".

"DeepSeek wrote a great story however lacked tension and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the evident option."

Opinions, archmageriseswiki.com though, differ.

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

"(Qwen2.5) is on par with DeepSeek V3 on certain tasks, however we can also see that it is refraining from doing as highly as others in imaginative 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 motion picture plot set in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, featuring main characters from the classic Chinese folklore impressive, Journey to the West.

True to form, DeepSeek came up with an interesting story embeded in the year 2145 entitled, "Neon Pilgrimage: The Silicon Sutra" - which sees "a future where Buddhism merges with quantum computing".

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

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

ChatGPT put up an excellent battle, creating an equally significant cyberpunk story which likewise reimagined "a ragteam of cyber-enhanced misfits, each matching the famous figures of Journey to the West".

"This is a world where AI deities rule, corporations change emperors and cybernetic implants are as typical as ancient misconceptions."

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

"The motion picture begins with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a modern research facility situated in the heart of Chongqing," it said, then going on to explain the following:

Realising his brand-new reality and "seeking to comprehend his function in this weird new world", he then escapes and Bajie and Sha Wujing - "each having problem with their own existential crises".

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

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

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

Her insight underscores how Chinese AI designs are not just reproducing Western paradigms, however rather progressing in economical innovation approaches - and providing localised and improved outcomes.

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

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

Unsurprisingly, the more recognized ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, provides accurate and accurate reactions to questions about Chinese present occasions, which offers it an added benefit.

Experts also weighed in on their thoughts after using 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 study firm Strategy Risks.

"When offered an option, Chinese users want the non-censored variation - just like anyone 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 Chinese users.

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