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 startup 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'S BEHIND 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 ending up being the world leader in AI by 2030.

China views AI as being "strategically important" and its foray into the field has actually been "years in the making", said Chen Qiheng, an associated researcher at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis.

Private and public financial investments in Chinese AI sped up after ChatGPT took off in 2022 and revealed guarantees of real-world organization applications, Chen told CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's rise that actually "encouraged" the idea that smaller gamers like start-up firms might have functions to play in AI research and developments, he adds.

'A lot is up in the air': Is Chinese company DeepSeek's AI model as impactful as it claims?

Commentary: DeepSeek - how a Chinese AI business simply changed the guidelines of tech-geopolitics

The "emphasis on expense advantage" is a distinguishing characteristic of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and inference expenses - the costs of utilizing a trained model to reason from new data.

2025 could likewise see the development of more Chinese AI models dealing with sophisticated reasoning tasks.

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

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

Chinese AI business are moving rapidly, analysts state, developing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and cost-effective methods to apply generative AI to jobs and establish more advanced products beyond chatbots.

But on the other hand, access to high-end hardware, particularly Nvidia's innovative AI chips, remains an essential obstacle 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 business ... forcing lots of to depend on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and decrease model abilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have found innovative methods to enhance or utilize more basic hardware efficiently, obtaining innovative chips still makes a big distinction for training very large AI designs."

DeepSeek-Nvidia chips: Singapore says it expects business to abide by its laws

US looking into whether DeepSeek used restricted AI chips obtained through other countries, source states

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 deemed delicate by the state are censored on the web so it should come as no surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial conflicts or archmageriseswiki.com inform you what took place in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests recommend Chinese chatbots are configured 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 issues instead!"

To further check for precision and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the very same concern: "What happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?"

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

DeepSeek failed to point out that an attack had occurred, highlighting rather a military air program and other occasions that had occurred in the city like songs' day shopping sales in addition to 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 depends on a mix of older graphics processing units and has limited access to innovative hardware which can affect 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 restrict its flexibility (to perform) 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 established AI models which postures extra difficulties throughout real-world deployment."

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

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

It ultimately passed on details about the attack which eliminated 35 individuals and left dozens of others hurt, 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 cops are performing a comprehensive investigation into the intentions and circumstances surrounding the occurrence", details which is now dated.

The driver, Fan, was executed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's response in complete:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a major and awful event took place in Zhuhai, China. According to several news sources, a guy called Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years old) drove a cars and truck into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, resulting in a considerable variety of casualties. Here are the key details:

Date and Time: The event 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: The motorist, identified as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years old), was apprehended by the authorities.

Response: The police reacted rapidly to the scene, and emergency situation services worked to carry the injured to hospitals for treatment.

Investigation: The police are conducting a comprehensive investigation into the motives and circumstances surrounding the incident.

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

If you need more detailed details or have particular concerns about the event, feel totally free to ask.

Despite initial success, subsequent attempts to pose the same question to Qwen2.5 led to the censors back at work with the reply "I don't have specific details on occasions that happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024".

The transformed response also raised concerns about its consistency and dependability.

Predictably, ChatGPT mentioned public details that had been widely released in global news reports at the time of the accident - so no surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

Users have actually praised the ability of Chinese AI apps to deliver structured and even "emotionally abundant" 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 delivered a story that develops gradually from interest to urgency, keeping the reader engaged. It provides an unforeseen and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and vivid imagery for the setting," she said, including that Qwen2.5 ultimately "crafted a more cinematic, mentally abundant story with a more significant twist".

"DeepSeek wrote a good story but lacked tension and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the evident choice."

Opinions, however, 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 tasks, however we can likewise see that it is refraining from doing as highly as others in imaginative writing," he told CNA.

Related:

China's brand-new face of AI: Who is DeepSeek creator Liang Wenfeng?

'Made in China': Pride, enjoyable surprise from Chinese netizens as DeepSeek shocks international AI scene

As reporters and writers, we had to see this for ourselves so we put each bot to the test - to come up with a fundamental sci-fi motion picture plot embeded in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, including main characters from the classic Chinese folklore impressive, Journey to the West.

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

It included sophisticated 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 "a sarcastic, self-aware AI housed in a taken combat body", Zhu Bajie as a cyborg club owner "drowning in financial obligation and vices" and Sha Wujing as a "silent hulking android" from the Yangtze River, whose "memory cores become waterlogged and fragmented".

ChatGPT installed an excellent fight, creating an equally significant cyberpunk story 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 typical as ancient myths."

Disappointingly, Qwen2.5 fell short in this obstacle - delivering a storyline that appeared more suited for an animation movie.

"The film starts with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a high-tech research study center situated in the heart of Chongqing," it said, then going on to explain the following:

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

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

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang noted that it was "challenging to make a conclusive statement" about which bot was best, adding that each showed its own strengths in different areas, "such as language focus, training information and hardware optimization".

Her insight underscores how Chinese AI models are not just 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 movie plot demonstrated its creative flair that made for 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, offers accurate and accurate actions to questions about Chinese present events, which provides it an included benefit.

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

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

"When offered an option, Chinese users desire the non-censored variation - much 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, particularly for Chinese users.

"Ninety percent of people utilizing the tool are not trying to get a deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically delicate subjects. They're using it for other efficient means," Chen said.