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 generated by an AI tool.

Bong Xin Ying

Lakeisha Leo

WHAT’S BEHIND CHINA’S AI BOOM?

Transforming the country 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 crucial” and its foray into the field has actually been “years in the making”, said Chen Qiheng, an associated scientist at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis.

Private and public financial investments in Chinese AI sped up after ChatGPT removed in 2022 and revealed guarantees of real-world business applications, garagesale.es Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek’s increase that truly “encouraged” the idea that smaller players like start-up companies might have roles to play in AI research study and developments, he adds.

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The “emphasis on cost benefit” is a distinctive feature of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and inference expenses - the expenses of using a trained model to reason from brand-new data.

2025 might also see the emergence of more Chinese AI designs taking on innovative reasoning tasks.

“We could see some AI firms focusing on getting closer to artificial general intelligence (AGI) while others concentrate on concrete ways to commercialise their models and incorporate them with clinical research,” Chen included.

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

Chinese AI business are moving rapidly, analysts say, constructing on DeepSeek’s momentum to come up with their own ingenious and economical ways to use 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 crucial difficulty for Chinese developers, noted Dr Marina Zhang, an associate professor at University of Technology Sydney’s (UTS) Australia-China Relations Institute.

“US export controls (still) restrict the ability of Chinese tech business … forcing numerous to count on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and decrease design abilities,” she said.

“While some business like DeepSeek, have actually found innovative ways to enhance or use more standard hardware efficiently, obtaining advanced chips still makes a huge difference for training huge AI models.”

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So how do Chinese AI bots match up against ChatGPT? We put them to the test.

WHICH BEST ADDRESSES CURRENT EVENTS IN CHINA?

In China, subjects considered delicate by the state are censored on the internet so it ought to come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disputes or tell you what occurred 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 type of concern yet. Let’s chat about mathematics, coding, and logic problems rather!”

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

The car attack outside a sports stadium in the southern Chinese city was initially greatly censored on Chinese social media - with authorities only divulging the death toll a day later.

DeepSeek failed to discuss that an attack had occurred, highlighting instead a military air program and other occasions that had happened in the city like singles’ day shopping sales along with sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang thinks that it might be a mix of aspects at play, such as censorship as well as “a couple of practical constraints”.

“DeepSeek counts on a mix of older graphics processing units and has limited 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 information might also limit its adaptability (to bring out) multilingual tasks … As a fairly brand-new product, DeepSeek also hasn’t yet been evaluated as broadly or on the very same scale as more recognized AI models which poses extra challenges during real-world implementation.”

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

That was after numerous repeated attempts - four prompts to be precise - in a period of around 20 minutes.

It eventually communicated details about the attack which killed 35 people and left dozens of others hurt, likewise going on to note details like the date and time, surgiteams.com details about the assailant including his name and age, in addition to casualties.

However, it composed that “the cops are performing a comprehensive examination into the intentions and circumstances surrounding the incident”, details which is now dated.

The motorist, Fan, was performed last month.

This is Qwen2.5 in full:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a major and tragic occurrence happened in Zhuhai, China. According to multiple news sources, a man named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years of ages) drove a car into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, leading to a significant number of casualties. Here are the crucial details:

Date and Time: The incident 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 motorist, identified as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years old), was apprehended by the authorities.

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

Investigation: The authorities are carrying out a comprehensive investigation into the intentions and scenarios surrounding the incident.

This occasion was commonly reported in the media and caused substantial public concern. The government and higgledy-piggledy.xyz local authorities have actually been working to offer support to the victims and their families, disgaeawiki.info and to ensure a detailed examination into the event.

If you require more detailed details or have particular questions about the occurrence, do not hesitate to ask.

Despite preliminary success, subsequent efforts to posture the exact same question to Qwen2.5 resulted in the censors back at work with the reply “I don’t have particular details on events that occurred in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024”.

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

Predictably, ChatGPT cited public details that had actually been commonly released in international news reports at the time of the mishap - so not a surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

Users have praised the ability of Chinese AI apps to deliver structured and even “mentally abundant” writing.

“DeepSeek-R1 provided 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 delivered a story that builds slowly from interest to seriousness, keeping the reader engaged. It uses an unanticipated 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, emotionally rich story with a more considerable twist”.

“DeepSeek wrote a good story however did not have stress and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the evident choice.”

Opinions, however, vary.

Chen believes that Qwen2.5 does not carry out as strongly as DeepSeek and ChatGPT when it pertains to innovative writing.

”(Qwen2.5) is on par with DeepSeek V3 on certain jobs, however we can likewise see that it is refraining from doing as highly as others in innovative writing,” he told CNA.

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As reporters and authors, we had to see this for ourselves so we put each bot to the test - to come up with a fundamental sci-fi motion picture plot embeded in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, featuring main characters from the classic Chinese folklore epic, Journey to the West.

True to form, DeepSeek developed an interesting storyline embeded in the year 2145 titled, “Neon Pilgrimage: The Silicon Sutra” - which sees “a future where Buddhism combines with quantum computing”.

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

It likewise brilliantly reimagined traditional heroes Sun Wukong as “an ironical, self-aware AI housed in a taken 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 set up an excellent fight, coming up with an equally remarkable cyberpunk story 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 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 suited for an animation movie.

“The motion picture begins with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a high-tech 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 function in this unusual brand-new world”, he then gets away and meets Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - “each dealing with their own existential crises”.

The trio then starts a quest, browsing the streets of Chongqing to protect the spiritual “Eternal Scroll” from falling under the incorrect hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang noted that it was “tough to make a definitive declaration” about which bot was best, including that each displayed its own strengths in different areas, “such as language focus, training data and hardware optimization”.

Her insight underscores how Chinese AI designs are not just replicating Western paradigms, however rather developing in cost-efficient development approaches - and providing localised and enhanced results.

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

DeepSeek’s sci-fi film plot showed its creative flair that made for a more appealing and creative narrative as compared to Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT’s efforts.

Unsurprisingly, the more recognized ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, supplies accurate and factual actions to questions about Chinese existing occasions, which provides it an added benefit.

Experts also weighed in on their thoughts after using DeepSeek and larsaluarna.se 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 offered a choice, Chinese users desire the non-censored version - much like anyone 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, particularly for Chinese users.

“Ninety per cent of individuals using the tool are not attempting to get a deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically delicate topics. They’re utilizing it for other productive methods,” Chen said.