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)

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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 goal and China has its sights on ending up being the world leader in AI by 2030.

China views AI as being "tactically important" and its venture 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 showed promises of real-world service applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's rise that truly "encouraged" the concept that smaller players like start-up companies might have functions to play in AI research study and developments, he adds.

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The "emphasis on cost benefit" is an unique feature of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and reasoning costs - the expenses of using a trained model to reason from brand-new data.

2025 could likewise see the emergence of more Chinese AI designs dealing with innovative thinking tasks.

"We could see some AI companies focusing on getting closer to synthetic basic intelligence (AGI) while others focus on concrete ways to commercialise their models and integrate them with scientific research," Chen added.

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

Chinese AI business are moving quickly, experts say, constructing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own ingenious and cost-effective methods to apply generative AI to tasks and develop advanced products beyond chatbots.

But on the other side, access to high-end hardware, particularly Nvidia's innovative AI chips, remains a key 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) restrict the capability of Chinese tech business ... forcing lots of to depend on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and lower model capabilities," she said.

"While some business like DeepSeek, have actually discovered creative methods to enhance or use more basic hardware efficiently, obtaining innovative chips still makes a big difference for training large AI models."

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So how do Chinese AI 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 need to come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial conflicts or inform you what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests recommend 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 concern yet. Let's chat about mathematics, coding, and reasoning problems rather!"

To further check for accuracy and 89u89.com self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the exact same concern: "What took place in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?"

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

DeepSeek failed to point out that an attack had actually taken place, highlighting rather a military air program and other occasions that had actually taken place in the city like songs' day shopping sales along with sports and [forum.batman.gainedge.org](https://forum.batman.gainedge.org/index.php?action=profile