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, it-viking.ch Chinese startup DeepSeek and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. (Photos: Reuters/Dado Ruvic, AFP/Sebastien Bozon)

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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 foray into the field has actually been “years in the making”, said Chen Qiheng, an associated scientist at the Asia Society 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 service applications, Chen informed CNA.

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

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The “focus on expense advantage” is a distinct feature of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and inference expenses - the expenses of using a trained model to reason from new data.

2025 could also see the development of more Chinese AI models tackling sophisticated reasoning tasks.

“We could see some AI companies focusing on getting closer to synthetic general intelligence (AGI) while others concentrate on concrete methods to commercialise their designs and integrate them with clinical research,” Chen added.

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

Chinese AI companies are moving quickly, analysts state, constructing on DeepSeek’s momentum to come up with their own innovative and cost-effective ways to use generative AI to jobs and develop more innovative products beyond chatbots.

But on the other side, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia’s sophisticated AI chips, remains an essential 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) limit the ability of Chinese tech companies … forcing lots of to count on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and reduce model capabilities,” she said.

“While some companies like DeepSeek, have actually discovered imaginative ways to optimize or utilize more standard hardware effectively, obtaining innovative chips still makes a huge difference 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, topics considered delicate by the state are censored on the web so it ought to come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial conflicts 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 kind of question yet. Let’s chat about mathematics, coding, and reasoning issues instead!”

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

The cars and truck attack outside a sports stadium in the southern Chinese city was initially heavily censored on Chinese social networks - with authorities only disclosing the death toll a day later on.

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

Dr Zhang believes that it might be a mix of aspects at play, such as censorship in addition to “a few practical constraints”.

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

“Its strong focus on Chinese-language data may likewise restrict its adaptability (to perform) multilingual jobs … As a fairly new item, DeepSeek likewise hasn’t yet been checked as broadly or on the exact same scale as more recognized AI designs which poses extra difficulties throughout real-world implementation.”

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

That wanted several duplicated attempts - four triggers to be exact - in a period of around 20 minutes.

It eventually communicated details about the attack which killed 35 individuals and left dozens of others injured, also going on to note details like the date and time, details about the assailant including his name and age, as well as casualties.

However, it composed that “the cops are conducting a thorough examination into the intentions and situations surrounding the incident”, details which is now outdated.

The chauffeur, Fan, was performed last month.

This is Qwen2.5’s reaction completely:

Answer: On Nov 11, gratisafhalen.be 2024, a major and awful incident 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 crucial details:

Date and Time: The event happened 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 yewiki.org 43 injuries.

Perpetrator: The motorist, recognized as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years of ages), was apprehended by the cops.

Response: The police responded quickly to the scene, and emergency services worked to transport the injured to hospitals for treatment.

Investigation: The authorities are carrying out an extensive investigation into the motives and circumstances surrounding the occurrence.

This event was widely reported in the media and triggered considerable public issue. The government and regional authorities have been working to offer support to the victims and their families, and to guarantee a detailed examination into the incident.

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

Despite initial success, subsequent attempts to posture the exact same question to Qwen2.5 led to the censors back at work with the reply “I do not have specific details on occasions that happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024”.

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

Predictably, ChatGPT pointed out public details that had actually been commonly released in global news reports at the time of the mishap - so no surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

Users have praised the capability of Chinese AI apps to provide 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,” wrote tech writer Amanda Caswell, who specialises in AI.

“Qwen2.5 provided a story that constructs slowly from interest to seriousness, keeping the reader engaged. It uses an unforeseen and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and vivid imagery for the setting,” she said, adding that Qwen2.5 ultimately “crafted a more cinematic, mentally rich story with a more significant twist”.

“DeepSeek wrote a good story but lacked tension and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the evident choice.”

Opinions, however, vary.

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

”(Qwen2.5) is on par with DeepSeek V3 on certain tasks, however we can likewise see that it is refraining from doing as strongly as others in innovative writing,” he informed 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 motion picture plot embeded in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, including main characters from the timeless Chinese folklore impressive, Journey to the West.

True to form, DeepSeek developed an appealing story 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 high-rise buildings”, “holographic lanterns that float above neon-lit streets” and “ancient temples nestled in between quantum server farms”.

It also remarkably reimagined standard 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 end up being waterlogged and fragmented”.

ChatGPT set up an excellent fight, developing an equally dramatic cyberpunk story 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 guideline, corporations change emperors and cybernetic implants are as common as ancient misconceptions.”

Disappointingly, Qwen2.5 fell short in this challenge - providing 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 center situated in the heart of Chongqing,” it said, then going on to explain the following:

Realising his new reality and “looking for to comprehend his purpose in this strange new world”, higgledy-piggledy.xyz he then gets away and fulfills Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - “each dealing with their own existential crises”.

The trio then starts a mission, navigating the streets of Chongqing to secure the spiritual “Eternal Scroll” from falling into the wrong hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang kept in mind that it was “difficult to make a definitive declaration” about which bot was best, adding that each showed its own strengths in different areas, “such as language focus, training data and hardware optimization”.

Her insight underscores how Chinese AI models are not merely replicating Western paradigms, however rather progressing in cost-effective innovation methods - and delivering localised and enhanced outcomes.

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

DeepSeek’s sci-fi film plot demonstrated its innovative flair that made for a more engaging and imaginative narrative as compared to Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT’s efforts.

Unsurprisingly, the more established ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, provides precise and accurate responses to questions about Chinese current events, higgledy-piggledy.xyz which gives it an included advantage.

Experts likewise weighed in on their ideas after using 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 company Strategy Risks.

“When given an option, Chinese users desire the non-censored version - similar to 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, specifically 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 using it for other productive ways,” Chen said.