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

This audio is created by an AI tool.

Bong Xin Ying

Lakeisha Leo

WHAT lags 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.

China views AI as being "tactically essential" 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 financial investments in Chinese AI accelerated after ChatGPT removed in 2022 and revealed guarantees of real-world company applications, Chen told CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's increase that truly "urged" the idea that smaller sized players like start-up firms could have functions to play in AI research study and advancements, wavedream.wiki he adds.

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The "focus on expense advantage" is a distinguishing characteristic of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and reasoning expenses - the expenses of using a trained design to draw conclusions from brand-new data.

2025 might also see the introduction of more Chinese AI designs dealing with sophisticated reasoning jobs.

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

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

Chinese AI companies are moving rapidly, experts state, building on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and affordable ways to apply generative AI to jobs and develop more advanced items beyond chatbots.

But on the other hand, 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 professor 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 count on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and reduce model abilities," she said.

"While some business like DeepSeek, have discovered imaginative ways to optimize or utilize more standard hardware efficiently, obtaining advanced chips still makes a huge distinction for training 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 sensitive by the state are censored on the internet so it ought to come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disagreements or tell you what took place in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

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

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

The car attack outside a sports stadium in the southern Chinese city was at first greatly censored on Chinese social media - with authorities just revealing 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 events that had actually happened in the city like singles' day shopping sales as well as sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang believes that it may be a mix of factors at play, such as censorship as well as "a few useful constraints".

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

"Its strong concentrate on Chinese-language information might likewise limit its versatility (to perform) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly new product, DeepSeek likewise hasn't yet been checked as broadly or on the exact same scale as more established AI models which poses additional difficulties during real-world release."

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

That was after multiple repeated attempts - 4 prompts to be accurate - in a period of around 20 minutes.

It eventually communicated details about the attack which killed 35 people and left dozens of others hurt, also going on to note details like the date and time, details about the assailant including his name and age, in addition to casualties.

However, it wrote that "the cops are performing a thorough examination into the motives and scenarios surrounding the incident", details which is now obsoleted.

The driver, Fan, was carried out last month.

This is Qwen2.5's response in full:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a major and awful occurrence took place in Zhuhai, China. According to multiple news sources, pediascape.science a male called Fan Weiqiu (樊某, systemcheck-wiki.de male, 62 years of ages) drove a cars and truck into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, resulting in a significant number of casualties. Here are the crucial details:

Date and Time: The incident took place on November 11, 2024, 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 motorist, determined as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years of ages), was captured by the police.

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

Investigation: The cops are performing a comprehensive examination into the motives and situations surrounding the event.

This event was widely reported in the media and public concern. The federal government and regional authorities have been working to provide support to the victims and their families, and to guarantee a detailed investigation into the incident.

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

Despite initial success, subsequent efforts to position the very same question to Qwen2.5 led to the censors back at work with the reply "I do not have specific details on events that took place in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024".

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

Predictably, ChatGPT cited public details that had been widely released in international report at the time of the accident - so not a surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

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

"DeepSeek-R1 used 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 builds gradually from curiosity to urgency, keeping the reader engaged. It uses an unforeseen and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and vivid images for the setting," she said, adding that Qwen2.5 eventually "crafted a more cinematic, emotionally abundant story with a more significant twist".

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

Opinions, however, differ.

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

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

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As reporters and writers, we had to see this for ourselves so we put each bot to the test - to come up with a standard sci-fi movie plot set in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, including main characters from the traditional Chinese folklore epic, Journey to the West.

True to form, DeepSeek came up with an interesting story embeded 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 skyscrapers", "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 taken combat body", setiathome.berkeley.edu Zhu Bajie as a cyborg bar owner "drowning in debt and vices" and Sha Wujing as a "silent hulking android" from the Yangtze River, bytes-the-dust.com whose "memory cores become waterlogged and fragmented".

ChatGPT put up an excellent battle, coming up with a similarly dramatic cyberpunk storyline which similarly 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 difficulty - providing a story that seemed more fit for an animation movie.

"The motion picture starts with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a state-of-the-art research facility 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 strange new world", he then gets away and meets Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - "each having a hard time with their own existential crises".

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

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang noted that it was "hard 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 data and hardware optimization".

Her insight highlights how Chinese AI models are not just reproducing Western paradigms, but rather developing in affordable development techniques - and higgledy-piggledy.xyz delivering localised and improved results.

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

DeepSeek's sci-fi film plot showed its creative flair that made for a more engaging and creative story as compared to Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT's efforts.

Unsurprisingly, the more established ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, hb9lc.org offers accurate and factual actions to questions about Chinese existing events, which gives it an included benefit.

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

"DeepSeek is at a disadvantage when it pertains to censorship constraints," kept in mind Isaac Stone Fish, creator and CEO of the research study company Strategy Risks.

"When given a choice, Chinese users want the non-censored version - much like anyone 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, especially for Chinese users.

"Ninety percent of individuals using the tool are not attempting to get a much deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically sensitive topics. They're using it for other productive means," Chen said.