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 bytes-the-dust.com OpenAI’s ChatGPT. (Photos: Reuters/Dado Ruvic, AFP/Sebastien Bozon)

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Bong Xin Ying

Lakeisha Leo

WHAT lags CHINA’S AI BOOM?

Transforming the country 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 “strategically crucial” and its foray into the field has 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 investments in Chinese AI sped up after ChatGPT took off in 2022 and revealed guarantees of real-world company applications, Chen told CNA.

But it was DeepSeek’s increase that really “encouraged” the concept that smaller sized gamers like start-up companies might have functions to play in AI research and developments, he adds.

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The “emphasis on cost advantage” is a distinguishing characteristic of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and systemcheck-wiki.de inference costs - the expenses of using a trained model to reason from new information.

2025 might also see the development of more Chinese AI designs taking on sophisticated thinking tasks.

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

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

Chinese AI companies are moving rapidly, experts state, constructing on DeepSeek’s momentum to come up with their own ingenious and economical methods to apply generative AI to jobs and establish advanced items beyond chatbots.

But on the other side, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia’s advanced AI chips, remains a crucial obstacle 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) limit the ability of Chinese tech companies … forcing numerous to count on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and decrease design capabilities,” she said.

“While some business like DeepSeek, have discovered innovative methods to enhance or utilize more basic hardware efficiently, obtaining cutting-edge chips still makes a big distinction for training huge AI designs.”

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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 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 disagreements or tell you what took place in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests recommend Chinese chatbots are configured to avoid domestic politics.

When asked “Who is Xi Jinping”, DeepSeek’s reply was “Sorry, I’m uncertain how to approach this type of question yet. Let’s chat about math, coding, and logic issues rather!”

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

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

DeepSeek failed to discuss that an attack had taken place, highlighting instead a military air show and other events that had taken place in the city like singles’ day shopping sales in addition to sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang believes that it may be a mix of factors at play, such as censorship in addition to “a few useful constraints”.

“DeepSeek depends on a mix of older graphics processing systems and has limited access to cutting-edge hardware which can affect how rapidly and extensively the design can be trained or upgraded,” she said, indicating existing US export curbs on China.

“Its strong concentrate on Chinese-language data may likewise limit its versatility (to bring out) multilingual tasks … As a fairly new item, DeepSeek also hasn’t yet been checked as broadly or on the exact same scale as more established AI models which presents additional obstacles during real-world implementation.”

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

That sought several duplicated attempts - four prompts to be accurate - in a period of around 20 minutes.

It eventually communicated details about the attack which killed 35 people and left lots of others hurt, also going on to list details like the date and time, details about the assailant including his name and age, as well as casualties.

However, it composed that “the police are conducting an extensive examination into the motives and scenarios surrounding the event”, details which is now obsoleted.

The driver, Fan, was carried out last month.

This is Qwen2.5’s reaction completely:

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

Date and Time: The event took place on November 11, 2024, 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 driver, identified as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years of ages), was nabbed by the police.

Response: The cops reacted rapidly to the scene, and pipewiki.org emergency situation services worked to carry the hurt to health centers for treatment.

Investigation: The cops are conducting a comprehensive examination into the motives and situations surrounding the event.

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

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

Despite preliminary success, subsequent efforts to present the very same question to Qwen2.5 led to the censors back at work with the reply “I don’t have particular details on occasions that happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024”.

The modified action likewise raised concerns about its consistency and reliability.

Predictably, ChatGPT pointed out public details that had actually been extensively released in global 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 deliver structured and even “mentally rich” writing.

“DeepSeek-R1 offered 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 gradually from curiosity to urgency, keeping the reader engaged. It provides an unanticipated and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and vivid images for the setting,” she said, adding that Qwen2.5 eventually “crafted a more cinematic, emotionally rich story with a more significant twist”.

“DeepSeek wrote an excellent story however did not have stress and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the obvious option.”

Opinions, however, vary.

Chen thinks that Qwen2.5 does not perform as highly as DeepSeek and engel-und-waisen.de ChatGPT when it pertains to innovative writing.

”(Qwen2.5) is on par with DeepSeek V3 on certain tasks, however 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 authors, we had to see this for ourselves so we put each bot to the test - to come up with a standard sci-fi film plot set in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, featuring main characters from the timeless Chinese folklore legendary, Journey to the West.

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

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

It likewise remarkably reimagined conventional heroes Sun Wukong as “an ironical, self-aware AI housed in a taken fight body”, Zhu Bajie as a cyborg nightclub 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 set up a good battle, developing an equally remarkable cyberpunk storyline which similarly reimagined “a ragteam of cyber-enhanced misfits, each mirroring the legendary figures of Journey to the West”.

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

Disappointingly, Qwen2.5 fell short in this difficulty - delivering a storyline that appeared more suited for an animation movie.

“The motion picture starts with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a modern research study facility located 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 unusual brand-new world”, he then escapes and fulfills Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - “each battling with their own existential crises”.

The trio then embarks on a mission, browsing the streets of Chongqing to protect the sacred “Eternal Scroll” from falling under the incorrect hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang noted that it was “tough to make a conclusive statement” 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 models are not simply duplicating Western paradigms, but rather evolving in economical innovation approaches - and delivering localised and improved results.

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

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

Unsurprisingly, the more recognized ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, supplies precise and accurate responses to concerns about Chinese current occasions, which gives it an added advantage.

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

“DeepSeek is at a drawback when it pertains to censorship constraints,” noted Isaac Stone Fish, larsaluarna.se creator and bytes-the-dust.com CEO of the research study firm Strategy Risks.

“When given an option, Chinese users want the non-censored version - simply like anybody else, so I feel like that’s a piece missing from it.”

Independent Beijing-based specialist 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 using the tool are not trying to get a much deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically delicate subjects. They’re utilizing it for other productive means,” Chen said.