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)

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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 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 foray into the field has been “years in the making”, said Chen Qiheng, an affiliated researcher 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 applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek’s rise that actually “encouraged” the idea that smaller sized players like start-up firms could have roles to play in AI research and advancements, he includes.

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The “focus on expense advantage” is a distinctive feature of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and inference costs - the costs of using a trained design to reason from new data.

2025 might also see the introduction of more Chinese AI designs taking on advanced thinking jobs.

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

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

Chinese AI business are moving quickly, experts state, developing on DeepSeek’s momentum to come up with their own ingenious and affordable methods to use generative AI to jobs and develop more advanced products beyond chatbots.

But on the other hand, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia’s sophisticated AI chips, remains a key obstacle for Chinese developers, 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 capability of Chinese tech business … requiring lots of to count on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and minimize design abilities,” she said.

“While some business like DeepSeek, have discovered innovative methods to optimize or utilize more standard hardware effectively, obtaining cutting-edge chips still makes a big difference for training huge 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 considered delicate 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 conflicts or inform you what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests suggest Chinese chatbots are programmed to avoid 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 issues rather!”

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

The vehicle 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 occurred, highlighting rather a military air program and other events that had taken place in the city like songs’ day shopping sales as well as sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang believes that it may be a mix of aspects at play, such as censorship along with “a few practical constraints”.

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

“Its strong concentrate on Chinese-language information might also 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 exact same scale as more established AI models which postures additional difficulties throughout real-world release.”

When it pertained to Qwen2.5, Alibaba’s chatbot surprisingly addressed our question about the Zhuhai vehicle attack.

That was after multiple repeated efforts - four triggers to be exact - in a period of around 20 minutes.

It ultimately passed on details about the attack which killed 35 people 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 an extensive investigation into the intentions and situations surrounding the incident”, yewiki.org details which is now outdated.

The motorist, Fan, was performed last month.

This is Qwen2.5’s response completely:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a major and tragic event happened in Zhuhai, China. According to numerous news sources, a guy called Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years of ages) drove a car into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, resulting in a significant number of casualties. Here are the key details:

Date and Time: The incident occurred on November 11, 2024, wiki.lafabriquedelalogistique.fr at around 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 driver, identified as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years old), was collared by the police.

Response: The cops responded rapidly to the scene, and emergency situation services worked to transport the injured to hospitals for treatment.

Investigation: The authorities are conducting a comprehensive examination into the intentions and circumstances surrounding the incident.

This event was extensively 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 ensure a detailed investigation into the occurrence.

If you need more detailed details or archmageriseswiki.com have specific questions about the event, do not hesitate to ask.

Despite preliminary success, subsequent attempts to position the very same concern to Qwen2.5 led to the censors back at work with the reply “I do not have particular details on events that took place in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024”.

The transformed response likewise raised concerns about its consistency and reliability.

Predictably, ChatGPT mentioned public details that had been extensively published in worldwide report at the time of the mishap - so no surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

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

“DeepSeek-R1 provided a story with a more reflective tone and smoother psychological shifts for a well-paced story,” composed tech author Amanda Caswell, who specialises in AI.

“Qwen2.5 provided a story that constructs slowly from curiosity to seriousness, keeping the reader engaged. It provides an unexpected and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and vivid imagery for the setting,” she said, adding that Qwen2.5 eventually “crafted a more cinematic, emotionally rich story with a more significant twist”.

“DeepSeek wrote a great story however did not have tension and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the obvious option.”

Opinions, however, vary.

Chen believes that Qwen2.5 does not carry out 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 creative writing,” he informed CNA.

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As journalists 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 embeded in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, including main characters from the classic Chinese folklore legendary, Journey to the West.

True to form, DeepSeek developed 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 elaborate settings - smoggy skies “pierced by skyscrapers”, “holographic lanterns that float above neon-lit streets” and “ancient temples nestled in between quantum server farms”.

It likewise brilliantly reimagined traditional heroes Sun Wukong as “an ironical, self-aware AI housed in a stolen combat body”, Zhu Bajie as a cyborg club owner “drowning in financial obligation and vices” and Sha Wujing as a “quiet hulking android” from the Yangtze River, whose “memory cores end up being waterlogged and fragmented”.

ChatGPT put up a good battle, creating a similarly remarkable cyberpunk story which similarly reimagined “a ragteam of cyber-enhanced misfits, each mirroring the legendary 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 - delivering a storyline that seemed more matched for an animation movie.

“The motion picture begins with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a modern research study center situated in the heart of Chongqing,” it said, then going on to explain the following:

Realising his new truth and “looking for to understand his purpose in this weird new world”, he then leaves and meets Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - “each having problem with their own existential crises”.

The trio then starts a quest, navigating the streets of Chongqing to safeguard the spiritual “Eternal Scroll” from falling into the incorrect hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang kept in mind that it was “difficult to make a definitive declaration” about which bot was best, including that each showed its own strengths in different areas, “such as language focus, training information and hardware optimization”.

Her insight highlights how Chinese AI designs are not just reproducing Western paradigms, but rather progressing in cost-efficient development approaches - and providing localised and improved results.

In our tests, wiki.snooze-hotelsoftware.de each bot showcased their own distinct strengths, which certainly made direct contrasts challenging.

DeepSeek’s sci-fi motion picture plot showed its creative flair that made for a more interesting and creative narrative as compared to Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT’s efforts.

Unsurprisingly, the more recognized ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, supplies accurate and accurate reactions to questions about Chinese present occasions, which provides it an added benefit.

Experts also weighed in on their ideas after utilizing DeepSeek and other Chinese AI apps.

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

“When provided a choice, Chinese users want the non-censored version - similar to anyone else, so I seem like that’s a piece missing from it.”

Independent Beijing-based expert 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 sensitive topics. They’re utilizing it for other efficient ways,” Chen said.