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)

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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 essential" and its foray into the field has actually 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 financial investments in Chinese AI accelerated after ChatGPT took off in 2022 and showed guarantees of real-world company applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's rise that truly "encouraged" the concept that smaller gamers like start-up firms could have roles to play in AI research study and advancements, he adds.

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The "emphasis on expense benefit" is a distinguishing characteristic of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and inference expenses - the expenses of using a trained model to reason from brand-new information.

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

"We could see some AI firms focusing on getting closer to synthetic general intelligence (AGI) while others concentrate on concrete ways to commercialise their designs and incorporate them with clinical research study," Chen added.

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 innovative and cost-efficient methods to use generative AI to tasks and establish advanced products beyond chatbots.

But on the flip side, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia's sophisticated AI chips, remains a crucial difficulty for Chinese developers, noted Dr Marina Zhang, an associate teacher at University of Technology Sydney's (UTS) Australia-China Relations Institute.

"US export controls (still) limit the ability of Chinese tech business ... forcing lots of to count on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and minimize design abilities," she said.

"While some business like DeepSeek, have actually discovered creative methods to enhance or utilize more fundamental hardware effectively, obtaining innovative chips still makes a huge distinction for training large AI designs."

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So how do Chinese AI bots match up 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 must come as no surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial conflicts or tell you what occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests suggest Chinese chatbots are programmed to steer clear of 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 rather!"

To even more check 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 arena in the southern Chinese city was initially heavily on Chinese social networks - with authorities just disclosing the death toll a day later.

DeepSeek failed to point out that an attack had taken place, highlighting rather a military air show and other events that had taken place in the city like songs' day shopping sales along with sports and cultural activities.

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

"DeepSeek depends on a mix of older graphics processing units and has restricted access to advanced hardware which can affect how rapidly and extensively the model can be trained or updated," she said, pointing to existing US export curbs on China.

"Its strong concentrate on Chinese-language data may likewise limit its flexibility (to carry out) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly brand-new item, DeepSeek also hasn't yet been checked as broadly or on the very same scale as more recognized AI models which presents additional obstacles during real-world deployment."

When it pertained to Qwen2.5, Alibaba's chatbot surprisingly answered our question about the Zhuhai car attack.

That wanted several repeated efforts - four prompts to be exact - in a span of around 20 minutes.

It eventually relayed details about the attack which eliminated 35 people and left dozens of others hurt, also going on to list details like the date and time, details about the assailant including his name and age, along with casualties.

However, it composed that "the authorities are conducting an extensive investigation into the motives and situations surrounding the occurrence", details which is now obsoleted.

The driver, Fan, was performed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's action completely:

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

Date and Time: The occurrence happened on November 11, 2024, at approximately 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, identified as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years old), was apprehended by the cops.

Response: The authorities responded rapidly to the scene, and emergency situation services worked to transfer the hurt to healthcare facilities for treatment.

Investigation: The authorities are performing an extensive investigation into the motives and situations surrounding the incident.

This occasion was commonly reported in the media and caused substantial public concern. The federal government and local authorities have been working to supply support to the victims and their households, and to make sure a detailed investigation into the occurrence.

If you require more detailed details or have particular concerns about the event, surgiteams.com do not hesitate to ask.

Despite preliminary success, subsequent attempts to position the exact same question to Qwen2.5 resulted in 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 response also raised questions about its consistency and reliability.

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

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

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

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

"Qwen2.5 provided a story that develops slowly from curiosity to seriousness, keeping the reader engaged. It uses an unforeseen and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and brilliant images for the setting," she said, hb9lc.org adding that Qwen2.5 eventually "crafted a more cinematic, mentally abundant story with a more significant twist".

"DeepSeek composed a great story however lacked stress and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the evident choice."

Opinions, though, vary.

Chen thinks that Qwen2.5 does not perform as strongly as DeepSeek and ChatGPT when it pertains to creative writing.

"(Qwen2.5) is on par with DeepSeek V3 on certain jobs, however we can also see that it is refraining from doing as strongly as others in imaginative writing," he told CNA.

Related:

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As reporters and writers, we had to see this for ourselves so we put each bot to the test - to come up with a basic 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 developed an interesting storyline set in the year 2145 titled, "Neon Pilgrimage: The Silicon Sutra" - which sees "a future where Buddhism combines with quantum computing".

It consisted of fancy settings - smoggy skies "pierced by skyscrapers", "holographic lanterns that drift above neon-lit streets" and "ancient temples nestled in between quantum server farms".

It likewise brilliantly reimagined traditional heroes Sun Wukong as "a sarcastic, self-aware AI housed in a taken battle 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 installed an excellent battle, creating a similarly significant 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 change emperors and cybernetic implants are as typical as ancient myths."

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