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)

This audio is produced by an AI tool.

Bong Xin Ying

Lakeisha Leo

WHAT AI BOOM?

Transforming the nation into a tech superpower has 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 foray 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 financial investments in Chinese AI accelerated after ChatGPT took off in 2022 and showed guarantees of real-world business applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek’s increase that truly “urged” the concept that smaller sized gamers like start-up firms could have functions to play in AI research study and developments, he adds.

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The “focus on cost advantage” is a distinguishing characteristic of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and reasoning expenses - the expenses of using a trained model to reason from new information.

2025 could likewise see the development of more Chinese AI models taking on innovative thinking tasks.

“We might see some AI firms focusing on getting closer to synthetic basic intelligence (AGI) while others concentrate on concrete ways to commercialise their designs and incorporate them with clinical research study,” Chen added.

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

Chinese AI business are moving rapidly, experts say, building on DeepSeek’s momentum to come up with their own innovative and cost-effective methods to use generative AI to jobs and develop more innovative products beyond chatbots.

But on the flip side, access to high-end hardware, particularly Nvidia’s innovative AI chips, remains a crucial difficulty for Chinese developers, kept in mind Dr Marina Zhang, an associate professor at University of Technology Sydney’s (UTS) Australia-China Relations Institute.

“US export controls (still) limit the capability of Chinese tech business … requiring lots of to count on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and reduce design abilities,” she said.

“While some companies like DeepSeek, have discovered innovative methods to optimize or use more fundamental hardware effectively, obtaining cutting-edge chips still makes a big 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 internet so it should come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial conflicts or tell you what took place in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests suggest Chinese chatbots are set to avoid 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 reasoning issues instead!”

To further check for precision and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the very same concern: “What took place in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?”

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

DeepSeek failed to discuss that an attack had taken location, highlighting rather a military air show and other occasions that had actually taken place in the city like songs’ day shopping sales in addition to sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang believes 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 units and has actually restricted access to advanced hardware which can impact how rapidly 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 may also limit its versatility (to bring out) multilingual jobs … As a fairly brand-new product, DeepSeek likewise hasn’t yet been evaluated as broadly or on the same scale as more recognized AI models which positions extra difficulties during real-world implementation.”

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

That was after multiple repeated efforts - 4 triggers to be exact - in a span of around 20 minutes.

It ultimately relayed details about the attack which killed 35 people and left dozens of others injured, likewise 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 conducting a thorough investigation into the intentions and situations surrounding the event”, details which is now obsoleted.

The chauffeur, pipewiki.org Fan, was executed last month.

This is Qwen2.5’s response in complete:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a significant and tragic occurrence occurred in Zhuhai, China. According to several news sources, a male named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years of ages) drove a cars and truck into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, pediascape.science resulting in a considerable number of casualties. Here are the essential details:

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

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

Casualties: The attack resulted in 35 deaths and 43 injuries.

Perpetrator: The driver, identified as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years old), was apprehended by the authorities.

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

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

This event was widely reported in the media and triggered substantial public concern. The government and regional authorities have been working to provide assistance to the victims and their families, and to ensure a detailed investigation into the event.

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

Despite initial success, subsequent attempts to posture the same concern to Qwen2.5 led to the censors back at work with the reply “I don’t have particular details on events that happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024”.

The transformed reaction also raised concerns about its consistency and reliability.

Predictably, ChatGPT cited public details that had been commonly 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 Chinese AI apps to deliver structured and even “mentally abundant” writing.

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

“Qwen2.5 delivered a story that builds slowly from curiosity to urgency, keeping the reader engaged. It offers an unforeseen and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and brilliant imagery for the setting,” she said, adding that Qwen2.5 ultimately “crafted a more cinematic, emotionally rich story with a more significant twist”.

“DeepSeek composed an excellent story but lacked tension and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the evident choice.”

Opinions, however, differ.

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

”(Qwen2.5) is on par with DeepSeek V3 on certain jobs, however 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 writers, we needed to see this for ourselves so we put each bot to the test - to come up with a standard sci-fi film plot embeded in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, including main characters from the traditional Chinese folklore impressive, Journey to the West.

True to form, DeepSeek developed an engaging story set in the year 2145 entitled, “Neon Pilgrimage: The Silicon Sutra” - which sees “a future where Buddhism merges with quantum computing”.

It consisted of sophisticated settings - smoggy skies “pierced by high-rise buildings”, “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 “a sarcastic, self-aware AI housed in a stolen fight body”, Zhu Bajie as a cyborg club owner “drowning in financial obligation and vices” and Sha Wujing as a “quiet hulking android” from the Yangtze River, whose “memory cores become waterlogged and fragmented”.

ChatGPT put up a good battle, developing an equally dramatic cyberpunk storyline which likewise reimagined “a ragteam of cyber-enhanced misfits, each mirroring the famous 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 myths.”

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

“The film starts with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a modern research study facility situated in the heart of Chongqing,” it said, then going on to explain the following:

Realising his new reality and “looking for to understand his function in this strange new world”, he then gets away and fulfills Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - “each having problem with their own existential crises”.

The trio then starts a quest, archmageriseswiki.com navigating the streets of Chongqing to protect the sacred “Eternal Scroll” from falling under the incorrect hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang kept in mind that it was “challenging to make a conclusive declaration” about which bot was best, including that each displayed its own strengths in various locations, “such as language focus, training data and hardware optimization”.

Her insight underscores how Chinese AI models are not just reproducing Western paradigms, however rather progressing in cost-effective development methods - and providing localised and enhanced outcomes.

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

DeepSeek’s sci-fi motion picture plot showed its innovative flair that made for 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, trademarketclassifieds.com supplies precise and accurate responses to concerns about Chinese present occasions, which gives it an included benefit.

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

“DeepSeek is at a disadvantage when it pertains to censorship constraints,” kept in mind Isaac Stone Fish, founder and CEO of the research study firm Strategy Risks.

“When given a choice, Chinese users want the non-censored version - simply 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, particularly for Chinese users.

“Ninety percent of people using 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.