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, hb9lc.org Chinese start-up DeepSeek and 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 nation 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 actually been “years in the making”, said Chen Qiheng, an associated 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 revealed promises of real-world company applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek’s increase that really “urged” the idea that smaller sized players like start-up firms might have functions to play in AI research and advancements, he includes.

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

2025 could likewise see the development of more Chinese AI designs taking on sophisticated thinking tasks.

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

AGI describes a system with intelligence on par with human capabilities.

Chinese AI companies are moving quickly, experts state, building on DeepSeek’s momentum to come up with their own innovative and cost-effective methods to apply generative AI to tasks and establish advanced products beyond chatbots.

But on the other hand, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia’s innovative AI chips, remains an essential difficulty for Chinese designers, kept in mind Dr Marina Zhang, engel-und-waisen.de an associate professor at University of Technology Sydney’s (UTS) Australia-China Relations Institute.

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

“While some business like DeepSeek, have found imaginative ways to optimize or use more fundamental hardware efficiently, obtaining advanced chips still makes a huge 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 considered sensitive by the state are censored on the internet so it should come as no surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disputes or inform you what occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests suggest Chinese chatbots are set to guide clear of 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 logic issues instead!”

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

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

DeepSeek failed to mention that an attack had occurred, highlighting instead a military air show and other events that had actually occurred in the city like songs’ day shopping sales along with sports and fishtanklive.wiki cultural activities.

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

“DeepSeek relies on a mix of older graphics processing systems and has actually restricted access to advanced 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 information may also restrict its versatility (to perform) 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 designs which positions additional obstacles during real-world deployment.”

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

That wanted multiple duplicated attempts - four triggers to be accurate - in a span of around 20 minutes.

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

However, it composed that “the cops are performing an extensive investigation into the intentions and circumstances surrounding the occurrence”, details which is now obsoleted.

The driver, Fan, was carried out last month.

This is Qwen2.5’s action in complete:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a major and terrible event took place in Zhuhai, China. According to multiple news sources, garagesale.es a man called Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years of ages) drove a vehicle into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, leading to a substantial variety of casualties. Here are the essential details:

Date and Time: The occurrence 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 engel-und-waisen.de 43 injuries.

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

Response: The police reacted rapidly to the scene, and emergency services worked to carry the hurt to hospitals for treatment.

Investigation: The authorities are conducting a thorough investigation into the motives and scenarios surrounding the occurrence.

This occasion was widely reported in the media and triggered considerable public issue. The government and local authorities have actually been working to provide assistance to the victims and their families, and to guarantee a detailed investigation into the event.

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

Despite preliminary success, subsequent attempts to pose the very same concern to Qwen2.5 resulted in the censors back at work with the reply “I do not have specific details on events that took place in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024”.

The transformed action likewise raised concerns about its consistency and dependability.

Predictably, ChatGPT pointed out public details that had been commonly published in worldwide report 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 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 develops slowly from curiosity to urgency, keeping the reader engaged. It offers an unanticipated and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and vibrant images for the setting,” she said, including that Qwen2.5 ultimately “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 apparent choice.”

Opinions, however, differ.

Chen thinks that Qwen2.5 does not perform 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 also see that it is refraining from doing as highly as others in creative writing,” he informed 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 motion picture plot set in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, featuring main characters from the traditional Chinese folklore legendary, Journey to the West.

True to form, DeepSeek created an appealing story embeded in the year 2145 entitled, “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 float above neon-lit streets” and “ancient temples nestled in between quantum server farms”.

It likewise remarkably reimagined conventional heroes Sun Wukong as “an ironical, self-aware AI housed in a taken battle body”, Zhu Bajie as a cyborg bar owner “drowning in debt and vices” and Sha Wujing as a “silent hulking android” from the Yangtze River, whose “memory cores end up being waterlogged and fragmented”.

ChatGPT put up a good fight, creating an equally significant cyberpunk story 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 guideline, corporations replace emperors and cybernetic implants are as common as ancient misconceptions.”

Disappointingly, Qwen2.5 fell short in this obstacle - providing a storyline that appeared more fit for an animation movie.

“The motion picture begins with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a high-tech research study 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 unusual brand-new world”, he then leaves and fulfills Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - “each struggling with their own existential crises”.

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

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

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

Her insight underscores how Chinese AI designs are not just duplicating Western paradigms, but rather evolving in cost-effective innovation approaches - and delivering localised and enhanced outcomes.

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

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

Unsurprisingly, the more established ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, supplies accurate and factual reactions to concerns about Chinese present occasions, which provides it an included advantage.

Experts likewise weighed in on their ideas after using DeepSeek and other Chinese AI apps.

“DeepSeek is at a downside when it pertains to censorship constraints,” noted Isaac Stone Fish, creator and CEO of the research firm Strategy Risks.

“When provided 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, setiathome.berkeley.edu especially for Chinese users.

“Ninety per cent of people utilizing the tool are not attempting to get a much deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically sensitive topics. They’re using it for other efficient ways,” Chen said.