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 start-up 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 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 affiliated scientist at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis.

Private and public financial investments in Chinese AI accelerated after ChatGPT removed in 2022 and forum.altaycoins.com revealed guarantees of real-world business applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's rise that really "encouraged" the idea that smaller sized gamers like start-up companies might have roles to play in AI research and advancements, he adds.

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The "emphasis on cost advantage" is a distinguishing characteristic of Chinese AI, pipewiki.org Chen states, with lower training and reasoning expenses - the expenses of utilizing a trained model to draw conclusions from new information.

2025 could also see the emergence of more Chinese AI designs dealing with sophisticated reasoning tasks.

"We might see some AI firms focusing on getting closer to artificial basic intelligence (AGI) while others focus on concrete methods to commercialise their designs and integrate them with scientific research study," Chen included.

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

Chinese AI business are moving quickly, analysts say, developing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own ingenious and cost-efficient methods to use generative AI to jobs and develop advanced products beyond chatbots.

But on the other hand, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia's advanced AI chips, remains a key hurdle for Chinese designers, noted Dr Marina Zhang, an at University of Technology Sydney's (UTS) Australia-China Relations Institute.

"US export controls (still) limit the capability of Chinese tech business ... requiring lots of to depend on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and lower design abilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have found imaginative methods to optimize or utilize more basic hardware effectively, obtaining advanced chips still makes a big difference for training 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 considered delicate by the state are censored on the web so it should come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disagreements or inform you what took place in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests recommend Chinese chatbots are configured to stay away from 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 instead!"

To even more check for precision and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the exact same question: "What took place in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?"

The car attack outside a sports stadium in the southern Chinese city was at first greatly censored on Chinese social networks - with authorities just disclosing the death toll a day later on.

DeepSeek failed to point out that an attack had occurred, highlighting rather a military air program and other occasions that had actually happened in the city like songs' day shopping sales as well as sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang thinks that it may be a mix of aspects at play, such as censorship in addition to "a few useful constraints".

"DeepSeek counts on a mix of older graphics processing units and has restricted access to advanced hardware which can impact how quickly and thoroughly the model can be trained or updated," she said, indicating existing US export curbs on China.

"Its strong focus on Chinese-language data may likewise limit its flexibility (to carry out) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly brand-new product, DeepSeek likewise hasn't yet been checked as broadly or on the same scale as more established AI models which poses extra difficulties throughout real-world implementation."

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

That was after multiple duplicated efforts - four triggers to be precise - in a span of around 20 minutes.

It eventually communicated details about the attack which killed 35 people and left lots of others injured, likewise 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 wrote that "the police are conducting a thorough investigation into the motives and situations surrounding the incident", details which is now dated.

The motorist, Fan, was performed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's reaction in full:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a major and terrible event occurred in Zhuhai, China. According to multiple news sources, a male named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years old) drove a car into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, resulting in a considerable number of casualties. Here are the essential details:

Date and Time: The event took place on November 11, 2024, at around 19:48 PM.

Location: Zhuhai Sports Center, in the Xiangzhou District of Zhuhai.

Casualties: The attack resulted in 35 deaths and 43 injuries.

Perpetrator: The chauffeur, identified as Fan Weiqiu (male, systemcheck-wiki.de 62 years of ages), was nabbed by the police.

Response: The cops reacted rapidly to the scene, and emergency services worked to transport the injured to hospitals for wiki.myamens.com treatment.

Investigation: The authorities are carrying out a comprehensive examination into the motives and engel-und-waisen.de scenarios surrounding the incident.

This occasion was extensively 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 households, and to ensure a detailed examination into the event.

If you require more detailed details or have particular questions about the occurrence, feel free to ask.

Despite initial success, subsequent efforts to pose the very same question 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 altered reaction also raised concerns about its consistency and reliability.

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

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

Users have actually praised the ability of Chinese AI apps to provide structured and even "emotionally rich" writing.

"DeepSeek-R1 offered a story with a more reflective tone and smoother psychological transitions for a well-paced story," composed tech writer Amanda Caswell, who specialises in AI.

"Qwen2.5 delivered a story that constructs slowly from curiosity to urgency, keeping the reader engaged. It offers an unexpected 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, emotionally abundant story with a more substantial twist".

"DeepSeek composed an excellent story however lacked stress and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the apparent option."

Opinions, however, vary.

Chen believes 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, but we can also see that it is refraining from doing as highly as others in imaginative writing," he informed CNA.

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

True to form, DeepSeek developed an interesting story embeded in the year 2145 entitled, "Neon Pilgrimage: The Silicon Sutra" - which sees "a future where Buddhism merges with quantum computing".

It consisted of fancy settings - smoggy skies "pierced by high-rise buildings", "holographic lanterns that drift 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 stolen fight body", setiathome.berkeley.edu Zhu Bajie as a cyborg club 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 battle, developing a similarly dramatic 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 typical as ancient myths."

Disappointingly, Qwen2.5 fell short in this challenge - providing a story that seemed more fit for an animation film.

"The motion picture starts with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a state-of-the-art research facility located in the heart of Chongqing," it said, then going on to explain the following:

Realising his brand-new truth and "seeking to understand his purpose in this odd 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 quest, navigating the streets of Chongqing to protect the sacred "Eternal Scroll" from falling under the wrong hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang kept in mind that it was "hard to make a conclusive declaration" about which bot was best, including that each displayed its own strengths in various areas, "such as language focus, training information and hardware optimization".

Her insight underscores how Chinese AI models are not merely reproducing Western paradigms, but rather progressing in cost-efficient innovation methods - and providing localised and improved outcomes.

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

DeepSeek's sci-fi motion picture plot showed its innovative flair that produced a more appealing and imaginative narrative as compared to Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT's efforts.

Unsurprisingly, the more recognized ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, offers precise and accurate actions to concerns about Chinese existing occasions, which offers it an added benefit.

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

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

"When offered an option, Chinese users want the non-censored version - much like anyone else, so I seem like that's a piece missing 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 percent of people using the tool are not attempting to get a deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically delicate subjects. They're using it for other productive ways," Chen said.