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, AFP/Sebastien Bozon)

This audio is produced by an AI tool.

Bong Xin Ying

Lakeisha Leo

WHAT lags CHINA'S AI BOOM?

Transforming the nation into a tech superpower has 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 "strategically crucial" and its foray into the field has actually been "years in the making", said Chen Qiheng, an associated scientist at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis.

Private and public financial investments in Chinese AI accelerated after ChatGPT took off in 2022 and showed pledges of real-world business applications, Chen told CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's increase that really "encouraged" the idea that smaller gamers like start-up companies could have functions to play in AI research study and advancements, he includes.

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

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

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

2025 might likewise see the development of more Chinese AI designs taking on advanced reasoning tasks.

"We might see some AI firms focusing on getting closer to synthetic basic intelligence (AGI) while others focus on concrete methods to commercialise their designs and integrate them with clinical research study," Chen added.

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

Chinese AI business are moving rapidly, analysts say, building on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and affordable methods to use generative AI to tasks and develop more advanced products beyond chatbots.

But on the other hand, access to high-end hardware, particularly Nvidia's sophisticated AI chips, remains a key difficulty 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) restrict the capability of Chinese tech companies ... forcing many to depend on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and lower model abilities," she said.

"While some business like DeepSeek, have actually discovered innovative methods to optimize or utilize more fundamental hardware efficiently, obtaining innovative chips still makes a huge distinction for training extremely large AI designs."

DeepSeek-Nvidia chips: Singapore says it expects companies to comply with its laws

US checking out whether DeepSeek utilized restricted AI chips obtained through other countries, source says

So how do Chinese AI bots match up 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 internet so it should 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 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 logic issues instead!"

To further check for accuracy and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the very same concern: "What took place 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 only disclosing the death toll a day later on.

DeepSeek failed to point out that an attack had actually happened, highlighting instead a military air show and other events that had actually occurred in the city like singles' day shopping sales as well as sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang thinks that it might be a mix of elements at play, such as censorship in addition to "a couple of useful constraints".

"DeepSeek counts on a mix of older graphics processing units and has actually limited access to cutting-edge hardware which can affect how quickly and extensively the model can be trained or updated," she said, pointing to existing US export curbs on China.

"Its strong concentrate on Chinese-language data may also limit its adaptability (to perform) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly brand-new item, DeepSeek likewise hasn't yet been checked as broadly or on the same scale as more recognized AI models which positions additional obstacles throughout real-world deployment."

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

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

It ultimately relayed details about the attack which killed 35 people and left lots of others injured, likewise going on to note details like the date and time, details about the assailant including his name and age, along with casualties.

However, it wrote that "the police are carrying out a thorough investigation into the motives and circumstances surrounding the incident", details which is now obsoleted.

The chauffeur, Fan, was carried out last month.

This is Qwen2.5's response in complete:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a significant and terrible occurrence took place in Zhuhai, China. According to several news sources, a man named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years old) drove a cars and truck into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, leading to a considerable variety of casualties. Here are the key details:

Date and Time: The event happened on November 11, 2024, at approximately 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, recognized as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years of ages), was captured by the police.

Response: The authorities responded rapidly to the scene, and emergency services worked to transfer the hurt to healthcare facilities for wiki.snooze-hotelsoftware.de treatment.

Investigation: The authorities are performing a comprehensive investigation into the motives and situations surrounding the incident.

This event was extensively reported in the media and caused substantial public concern. The federal government and regional authorities have been working to provide support to the victims and their households, and to make sure a detailed examination into the event.

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

Despite initial success, subsequent efforts to present the same concern to Qwen2.5 led to the censors back at work with the reply "I don't have particular details on events that happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024".

The modified response also raised questions about its consistency and reliability.

Predictably, ChatGPT cited public details that had been widely in international 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 "emotionally rich" writing.

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

"Qwen2.5 delivered a story that constructs gradually from curiosity to urgency, keeping the reader engaged. It provides an unanticipated and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and vivid imagery for the setting," she said, adding that Qwen2.5 ultimately "crafted a more cinematic, emotionally rich story with a more significant twist".

"DeepSeek wrote an excellent story however lacked stress and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the apparent choice."

Opinions, though, vary.

Chen thinks that Qwen2.5 does not perform as strongly as DeepSeek and ChatGPT when it pertains to creative 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 innovative writing," he informed CNA.

Related:

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

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

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

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

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

It likewise remarkably reimagined traditional heroes Sun Wukong as "an ironical, self-aware AI housed in a stolen battle body", Zhu Bajie as a cyborg bar owner "drowning in debt and vices" and Sha Wujing as a "silent hulking android" from the Yangtze River, whose "memory cores end up being waterlogged and fragmented".

ChatGPT set up a good fight, developing an equally dramatic cyberpunk storyline which likewise 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 typical as ancient myths."

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

"The film starts with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a high-tech research center situated 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 odd new world", he then leaves and fulfills Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - "each battling with their own existential crises".

The trio then starts a mission, navigating the streets of Chongqing to safeguard the spiritual "Eternal Scroll" from falling under the wrong hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

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

Her insight highlights how Chinese AI designs are not just duplicating Western paradigms, but rather evolving in affordable innovation techniques - and delivering localised and improved outcomes.

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

DeepSeek's sci-fi motion picture plot demonstrated its innovative flair that produced a more appealing and creative story as compared to Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT's efforts.

Unsurprisingly, the more established ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, provides accurate and factual reactions to questions about Chinese current occasions, which offers it an included advantage.

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

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

"When provided an option, Chinese users want the non-censored variation - just like anybody else, so I seem like that's a piece missing from it."

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

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