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 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 country into a tech superpower has actually long been President Xi Jinping's objective and China has its sights on becoming the world leader in AI by 2030.

AI as being "tactically important" 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 sped up after ChatGPT took off in 2022 and showed pledges of real-world business applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's increase that actually "encouraged" the idea that smaller sized gamers like start-up companies might have roles to play in AI research study and developments, he adds.

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The "emphasis on expense benefit" is a distinctive feature of Chinese AI, Chen says, higgledy-piggledy.xyz with lower training and reasoning expenses - the expenses of utilizing a trained model to draw conclusions from new information.

2025 could also see the emergence of more Chinese AI models taking on innovative thinking jobs.

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

AGI refers to 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 affordable methods to apply generative AI to jobs and develop advanced products beyond chatbots.

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

"US export controls (still) restrict the ability of Chinese tech companies ... requiring numerous to count on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and decrease design abilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have actually found innovative methods to enhance or utilize more basic hardware efficiently, obtaining cutting-edge chips still makes a huge difference for training huge 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 deemed sensitive by the state are censored on the internet so it need to come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disputes or tell you what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests suggest Chinese chatbots are set to steer clear of 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 math, coding, and reasoning problems rather!"

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

The automobile attack outside a sports arena in the southern Chinese city was at first heavily censored on Chinese social media - with authorities just revealing the death toll a day later on.

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

Dr Zhang believes that it might be a mix of elements at play, such as censorship along with "a couple of useful constraints".

"DeepSeek depends on a mix of older graphics processing systems and has restricted access to cutting-edge hardware which can impact how rapidly and extensively the design can be trained or updated," she said, indicating existing US export curbs on China.

"Its strong concentrate on Chinese-language data may also limit its flexibility (to carry out) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly new item, DeepSeek also hasn't yet been tested as broadly or on the same scale as more recognized AI designs which poses extra challenges throughout real-world deployment."

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

That was after several duplicated efforts - 4 prompts to be precise - in a period of around 20 minutes.

It eventually communicated details about the attack which eliminated 35 people and left lots of others injured, likewise going on to list details like the date and time, details about the assailant including his name and age, in addition to casualties.

However, it composed that "the cops are carrying out an extensive examination into the intentions and situations surrounding the event", details which is now obsoleted.

The motorist, Fan, was performed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's reaction completely:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a major and tragic occurrence happened in Zhuhai, China. According to several news sources, gratisafhalen.be a guy named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years old) 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 event took place on November 11, 2024, forum.altaycoins.com 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 chauffeur, identified as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years old), was collared by the police.

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

Investigation: The authorities are performing an extensive examination into the motives and situations surrounding the event.

This occasion was commonly reported in the media and caused significant public issue. The government and local authorities have been working to provide assistance to the victims and their households, and to make sure a detailed investigation into the occurrence.

If you need more detailed details or have particular concerns about the incident, feel complimentary to ask.

Despite preliminary success, subsequent efforts to pose the very same question to Qwen2.5 resulted in the censors back at work with the reply "I do not have specific details on events that occurred 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 extensively released in global news reports at the time of the mishap - so not a surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

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

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

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

"DeepSeek composed an excellent story however lacked tension and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the apparent option."

Opinions, though, differ.

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

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

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

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

It included fancy settings - smoggy skies "pierced by high-rise buildings", "holographic lanterns that float above neon-lit streets" and "ancient temples nestled between quantum server farms".

It likewise remarkably reimagined conventional heroes Sun Wukong as "a sarcastic, self-aware AI housed in a taken fight body", Zhu Bajie as a cyborg nightclub owner "drowning in financial obligation and vices" and Sha Wujing as a "silent hulking android" from the Yangtze River, whose "memory cores end up being waterlogged and fragmented".

ChatGPT put up an excellent battle, creating an equally significant cyberpunk storyline which likewise reimagined "a ragteam of cyber-enhanced misfits, each matching the famous figures of Journey to the West".

"This is a world where AI deities guideline, corporations replace emperors and cybernetic implants are as common as ancient myths."

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

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

Realising his brand-new reality and "looking for to understand his function in this unusual new world", yewiki.org he then gets away and meets Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - "each having problem with their own existential crises".

The trio then embarks on a quest, browsing the streets of Chongqing to protect the sacred "Eternal Scroll" from falling under the wrong hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang kept in mind that it was "tough to make a conclusive statement" about which bot was best, including that each showed its own strengths in different locations, "such as language focus, training data and hardware optimization".

Her insight underscores how Chinese AI designs are not merely replicating Western paradigms, but rather evolving in cost-effective innovation methods - and providing localised and gratisafhalen.be enhanced outcomes.

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

DeepSeek's sci-fi film plot showed its creative flair that produced a more appealing and creative narrative as compared to Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT's efforts.

Unsurprisingly, the more established ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, supplies accurate and accurate reactions to concerns about Chinese existing events, 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 downside when it pertains to censorship constraints," kept in mind Isaac Stone Fish, creator and CEO of the research study firm Strategy Risks.

"When given a choice, Chinese users desire the non-censored variation - just like anybody else, so I seem like that's a piece missing out on from it."

Independent Beijing-based specialist Andy Chen Xinran said censorship would not be a dealbreaker when it pertains to AI bots, specifically for Chinese users.

"Ninety per cent of people utilizing the tool are not trying to get a deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically sensitive topics. They're using it for other efficient methods," Chen said.