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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 game after DeepSeek's success.

Alibaba's Qwen2.5-Max chatbot, Chinese startup DeepSeek and OpenAI's ChatGPT. (Photos: Reuters/Dado Ruvic, gratisafhalen.be AFP/Sebastien Bozon)

This audio is produced by an AI tool.

Bong Xin Ying

Lakeisha Leo

WHAT'S BEHIND CHINA'S AI BOOM?

Transforming the nation into a tech superpower has actually long been President Xi Jinping's goal and China has its sights on ending up being the world leader in AI by 2030.

China views AI as being "strategically important" and its venture into the field has actually been "years in the making", said Chen Qiheng, setiathome.berkeley.edu an associated researcher at the Asia Society Policy Institute's 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 organization applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's rise that really "urged" the idea that smaller players like start-up companies could have roles to play in AI research and advancements, he includes.

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The "focus on cost advantage" is a distinctive feature of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and inference costs - the costs of utilizing a trained design to reason from brand-new information.

2025 could also see the emergence of more Chinese AI designs taking on sophisticated reasoning tasks.

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

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

Chinese AI companies are moving rapidly, surgiteams.com experts say, building on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and cost-efficient methods to apply generative AI to jobs and develop advanced products beyond .

But on the other hand, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia's innovative AI chips, remains a crucial hurdle for Chinese designers, 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 companies ... forcing numerous to count on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and decrease model abilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have actually found creative methods to optimize or use more basic hardware efficiently, obtaining innovative chips still makes a big distinction for training really 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, topics deemed 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 disagreements or tell you what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests recommend Chinese chatbots are set to stay away from 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 math, coding, and reasoning problems instead!"

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

The cars and truck attack outside a sports arena in the southern Chinese city was at first greatly censored on Chinese social media - with authorities only disclosing the death toll a day later on.

DeepSeek failed to mention that an attack had actually happened, highlighting instead a military air show and other occasions that had actually occurred 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 along with "a few practical constraints".

"DeepSeek depends on a mix of older graphics processing units and has limited access to innovative hardware which can affect how quickly and thoroughly the design can be trained or updated," she said, pointing to existing US export curbs on China.

"Its strong focus on Chinese-language data might also restrict its adaptability (to bring out) multilingual tasks ... As a fairly new product, DeepSeek also hasn't yet been tested as broadly or on the very same scale as more established AI models which positions extra challenges during real-world release."

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

That wanted several duplicated attempts - 4 prompts to be accurate - in a period of around 20 minutes.

It ultimately relayed details about the attack which eliminated 35 individuals and left lots of others hurt, likewise going on to list details like the date and time, yewiki.org details about the assailant including his name and age, as well as casualties.

However, it wrote that "the police are performing a thorough investigation into the intentions and situations surrounding the event", details which is now dated.

The chauffeur, Fan, was performed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's response in full:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a significant and tragic occurrence happened in Zhuhai, China. According to several news sources, a guy called Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years old) 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 event happened on November 11, 2024, at around 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, yewiki.org 62 years old), was apprehended by the cops.

Response: The authorities responded rapidly to the scene, and emergency services worked to transport the injured to healthcare facilities for treatment.

Investigation: The cops are performing a comprehensive investigation into the motives and circumstances surrounding the occurrence.

This event was widely reported in the media and triggered significant public issue. The government and regional authorities have actually been working to provide support to the victims and their households, and to ensure a detailed investigation into the incident.

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

Despite preliminary success, subsequent efforts to posture the same question to Qwen2.5 led to the censors back at work with the reply "I don't have particular details on occasions that occurred in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024".

The altered action likewise raised questions about its consistency and dependability.

Predictably, ChatGPT pointed out public details that had actually been commonly released 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 provide structured and even "mentally rich" writing.

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

"Qwen2.5 provided a story that constructs gradually from interest to urgency, keeping the reader engaged. It uses an unexpected and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and vivid images for the setting," she said, including that Qwen2.5 ultimately "crafted a more cinematic, emotionally abundant story with a more considerable twist".

"DeepSeek composed an excellent story but did not have tension and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the obvious choice."

Opinions, though, vary.

Chen believes that Qwen2.5 does not perform as highly as DeepSeek and ChatGPT when it pertains to innovative writing.

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

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As reporters and authors, 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 set in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, including main characters from the classic Chinese folklore epic, Journey to the West.

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

It included intricate 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 also remarkably reimagined traditional heroes Sun Wukong as "an ironical, self-aware AI housed in a stolen combat body", Zhu Bajie as a cyborg bar 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 a good fight, creating a similarly dramatic cyberpunk storyline which similarly reimagined "a ragteam of cyber-enhanced misfits, each matching the legendary 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 misconceptions."

Disappointingly, Qwen2.5 fell short in this difficulty - delivering a story that seemed more suited for an animation movie.

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

Realising his brand-new truth and "seeking to comprehend his function in this strange new world", he then leaves and meets Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - "each dealing with their own existential crises".

The trio then embarks on a mission, navigating the streets of Chongqing to secure the spiritual "Eternal Scroll" from falling into the incorrect hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang noted that it was "difficult to make a definitive declaration" about which bot was best, adding that each displayed its own strengths in various areas, "such as language focus, training data and hardware optimization".

Her insight highlights how Chinese AI designs are not simply duplicating Western paradigms, but rather progressing in cost-effective development approaches - and providing localised and improved outcomes.

In our tests, each bot showcased their own special strengths, wiki-tb-service.com which certainly made direct contrasts challenging.

DeepSeek's sci-fi film plot showed its innovative flair that produced 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, supplies accurate and factual responses to questions about Chinese current occasions, which provides it an included benefit.

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

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

"When offered an option, Chinese users desire the non-censored variation - just like anybody else, so I feel like that's a piece missing out on 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 percent of individuals utilizing the tool are not trying to get a much deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically sensitive topics. They're utilizing it for other efficient methods," Chen said.