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 created by an AI tool.

Bong Xin Ying

Lakeisha Leo

WHAT lags CHINA’S AI BOOM?

Transforming the nation into a tech superpower has actually 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 important” and its venture into the field has actually been “years in the making”, said Chen Qiheng, an affiliated scientist 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 service applications, Chen informed CNA.

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

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The “focus on cost benefit” is a distinct function of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and setiathome.berkeley.edu reasoning costs - the expenses of using a trained model to reason from brand-new information.

2025 could also see the introduction of more Chinese AI designs dealing with advanced thinking jobs.

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

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

Chinese AI companies are moving rapidly, experts say, constructing on DeepSeek’s momentum to come up with their own innovative and economical methods to use generative AI to tasks and establish more innovative items beyond chatbots.

But on the other side, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia’s advanced 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 companies … requiring lots of to count on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and reduce design abilities,” she said.

“While some business like DeepSeek, have actually found creative methods to optimize or use more basic hardware effectively, obtaining innovative chips still makes a big difference for training very 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, subjects deemed delicate by the state are censored on the internet so it need to come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disputes or inform you what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests suggest 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 mathematics, coding, and reasoning problems rather!”

To even more test for accuracy and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the same question: “What happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?”

The cars and truck 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.

failed to mention that an attack had actually happened, highlighting rather a military air program and other occasions that had happened in the city like songs’ day shopping sales in addition to sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang believes that it may be a mix of aspects at play, such as censorship as well as “a couple of useful constraints”.

“DeepSeek counts on a mix of older graphics processing systems and has actually limited access to innovative hardware which can affect how rapidly and thoroughly the design can be trained or updated,” she said, pointing to existing US export curbs on China.

“Its strong concentrate on Chinese-language data might likewise limit its versatility (to carry out) multilingual jobs … As a fairly brand-new product, DeepSeek likewise hasn’t yet been tested as broadly or on the exact same scale as more recognized AI models which presents extra obstacles throughout real-world deployment.”

When it pertained to Qwen2.5, Alibaba’s chatbot remarkably answered our question about the Zhuhai automobile attack.

That sought several duplicated efforts - 4 prompts to be exact - in a span of around 20 minutes.

It eventually relayed 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, as well as casualties.

However, it wrote that “the authorities are performing an extensive examination into the motives and scenarios surrounding the incident”, details which is now outdated.

The chauffeur, Fan, was executed last month.

This is Qwen2.5’s reaction completely:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a significant and tragic incident took place in Zhuhai, China. According to several news sources, a guy named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years old) 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 incident happened on November 11, 2024, at around 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, determined as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years old), was captured by the cops.

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

Investigation: The cops are conducting a thorough examination into the motives and scenarios surrounding the incident.

This occasion was extensively reported in the media and triggered significant public issue. The government and local authorities have actually been working to offer assistance to the victims and their families, and to make sure a detailed examination into the incident.

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

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

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

Predictably, ChatGPT cited public details that had been widely published in global report at the time of the accident - so not a surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

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

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

“Qwen2.5 provided a story that constructs slowly from curiosity to urgency, keeping the reader engaged. It provides an unanticipated and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and brilliant imagery for the setting,” she said, pipewiki.org adding that Qwen2.5 ultimately “crafted a more cinematic, emotionally abundant story with a more significant twist”.

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

Opinions, though, differ.

Chen thinks that Qwen2.5 does not carry out as highly 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 strongly as others in innovative writing,” he told CNA.

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As journalists and writers, we needed to see this for ourselves so we put each bot to the test - to come up with a basic sci-fi movie plot set in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, featuring main characters from the timeless Chinese folklore impressive, Journey to the West.

True to form, DeepSeek created 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 sophisticated settings - smoggy skies “pierced by high-rise buildings”, “holographic lanterns that drift above neon-lit streets” and “ancient temples nestled between quantum server farms”.

It also brilliantly reimagined traditional 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 become waterlogged and fragmented”.

ChatGPT installed a great battle, developing an equally significant cyberpunk storyline which similarly 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 replace emperors and cybernetic implants are as common as ancient myths.”

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

“The motion picture starts with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a state-of-the-art research study facility located 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 strange new world”, he then leaves and meets Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - “each having problem with their own existential crises”.

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

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang kept in mind that it was “difficult to make a conclusive statement” 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 designs are not merely replicating Western paradigms, but rather evolving in cost-efficient development approaches - and providing localised and enhanced outcomes.

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

DeepSeek’s sci-fi movie plot demonstrated its imaginative flair that made for a more interesting and imaginative story as compared to Qwen2.5 and systemcheck-wiki.de ChatGPT’s efforts.

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

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

“When provided an option, Chinese users want the non-censored variation - similar to 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 per cent of individuals using the tool are not trying to get a deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically delicate subjects. They’re using it for other productive methods,” Chen said.