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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, Chinese start-up DeepSeek and OpenAI's ChatGPT. (Photos: Reuters/Dado Ruvic, AFP/Sebastien Bozon)

This audio is produced by an AI tool.

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 goal and China has its sights on becoming the world leader in AI by 2030.

China views AI as being "tactically essential" 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 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 rise that actually "encouraged" the concept that smaller sized gamers like start-up companies might have roles to play in AI research and advancements, he includes.

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The "emphasis on expense advantage" is a distinctive function of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and reasoning costs - the expenses of using a trained design to draw conclusions from new information.

2025 might likewise see the emergence of more Chinese AI models tackling innovative reasoning tasks.

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

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

Chinese AI companies are moving rapidly, experts say, developing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and economical methods to apply generative AI to tasks and develop advanced products beyond chatbots.

But on the flip side, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia's sophisticated AI chips, remains a crucial obstacle for Chinese designers, kept in mind Dr Marina Zhang, an associate teacher 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 count on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and lower design abilities," she said.

"While some business like DeepSeek, have discovered innovative ways to optimize or use more fundamental hardware efficiently, obtaining advanced chips still makes a huge difference for training large 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 sensitive by the state are censored on the internet so it should come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disputes or tell you what occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests suggest Chinese chatbots are programmed 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 logic problems instead!"

To further test for accuracy and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the exact same concern: "What occurred in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?"

The vehicle attack outside a sports arena in the southern Chinese city was initially heavily censored on Chinese social networks - with authorities only revealing the death toll a day later.

DeepSeek failed to mention that an attack had occurred, highlighting rather a military air show and other occasions that had actually taken place in the city like singles' day shopping sales as well as sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang thinks that it might be a mix of aspects at play, such as censorship along with "a couple of practical constraints".

"DeepSeek relies on a mix of older graphics processing units and has limited access to cutting-edge hardware which can affect how rapidly and thoroughly the design can be trained or updated," she said, indicating existing US export curbs on China.

"Its strong focus on Chinese-language data may also limit its flexibility (to perform) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly new item, DeepSeek also hasn't yet been tested as broadly or on the very same scale as more established AI models which positions additional challenges during real-world release."

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

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

It ultimately passed on details about the attack which eliminated 35 individuals and left dozens of others injured, likewise 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 cops are performing an extensive investigation into the motives and scenarios surrounding the incident", details which is now dated.

The motorist, Fan, was executed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's response in complete:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a significant and terrible event occurred in Zhuhai, China. According to several news sources, a man called Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years of ages) drove an automobile into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, leading to a substantial variety of casualties. Here are the key details:

Date and Time: The incident happened on November 11, 2024, at roughly 19:48 PM.

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

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

Perpetrator: it-viking.ch The motorist, determined as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years old), was apprehended by the cops.

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

Investigation: The cops are carrying out a thorough examination into the motives and kousokuwiki.org situations surrounding the occurrence.

This event was commonly reported in the media and caused substantial public concern. The federal government and pipewiki.org local authorities have been working to offer assistance to the victims and their families, and to guarantee a detailed investigation into the incident.

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

Despite initial success, subsequent attempts to pose the very same concern to Qwen2.5 led to the censors back at work with the reply "I do not have specific details on events that happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024".

The modified reaction likewise raised questions about its consistency and reliability.

Predictably, ChatGPT pointed out public details that had been widely published in global report at the time of the mishap - so no 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 provided a story with a more introspective tone and smoother emotional transitions for a well-paced story," wrote tech author Amanda Caswell, who specialises in AI.

"Qwen2.5 provided a story that develops slowly from curiosity to urgency, keeping the reader engaged. It provides an unanticipated and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and brilliant images for the setting," she said, including that Qwen2.5 ultimately "crafted a more cinematic, emotionally abundant story with a more significant twist".

"DeepSeek wrote a great story however did not have stress and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the obvious choice."

Opinions, though, vary.

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

Related:

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As reporters and archmageriseswiki.com 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 embeded in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, featuring main characters from the traditional Chinese folklore legendary, Journey to the West.

True to form, DeepSeek came up with an appealing storyline set in the year 2145 entitled, "Neon Pilgrimage: The Silicon Sutra" - which sees "a future where Buddhism combines with quantum computing".

It included 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 brilliantly reimagined conventional heroes Sun Wukong as "an ironical, self-aware AI housed in a taken fight body", trademarketclassifieds.com 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 installed a great fight, creating a similarly dramatic cyberpunk story which likewise reimagined "a ragteam of cyber-enhanced misfits, each mirroring 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 challenge - delivering a story that seemed more matched for an animation film.

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

Realising his brand-new truth and "looking for to comprehend his purpose in this unusual brand-new world", he then gets away and fulfills Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - "each battling with their own existential crises".

The trio then starts a quest, navigating the streets of Chongqing to protect the sacred "Eternal Scroll" from falling into the wrong hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

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

Her insight underscores how Chinese AI designs are not simply duplicating Western paradigms, however rather developing in cost-effective development techniques - and delivering localised and enhanced results.

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

DeepSeek's sci-fi movie plot demonstrated its innovative flair that produced a more appealing 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 actions to questions about Chinese present occasions, which gives it an included advantage.

Experts likewise weighed in on their ideas after utilizing DeepSeek and surgiteams.com 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 Risks.

"When given an option, Chinese users want the non-censored version - similar to anybody else, so I feel 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, 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 sensitive topics. They're utilizing it for other productive ways," Chen said.