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 wakewiki.de 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 long been President Xi Jinping’s goal and China has its sights on becoming the world leader in AI by 2030.

China views AI as being “strategically essential” and its venture into the field has 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 accelerated after ChatGPT took off in 2022 and revealed pledges of real-world company applications, Chen told CNA.

But it was DeepSeek’s rise that truly “encouraged” the concept that smaller sized players like start-up firms could have functions to play in AI research and developments, engel-und-waisen.de he adds.

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The “emphasis on expense benefit” is a distinguishing characteristic of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and reasoning expenses - the expenses of utilizing a trained model to reason from brand-new data.

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

“We could see some AI companies concentrating on getting closer to artificial basic intelligence (AGI) while others focus on concrete methods to commercialise their models and incorporate them with scientific research,” Chen included.

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

Chinese AI companies are moving rapidly, experts state, building on DeepSeek’s momentum to come up with their own ingenious and economical methods to use generative AI to jobs and establish more innovative products beyond chatbots.

But on the other hand, access to high-end hardware, particularly Nvidia’s advanced AI chips, remains a crucial difficulty 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) restrict the ability of Chinese tech business … requiring many to count on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and reduce model abilities,” she said.

“While some companies like DeepSeek, have found creative methods to enhance or use more fundamental hardware effectively, obtaining cutting-edge chips still makes a big distinction for training very large AI designs.”

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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, topics deemed sensitive by the state are censored on the web so it ought to come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disagreements or inform you what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests suggest Chinese chatbots are configured to guide clear of 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 problems rather!”

To even more test for accuracy and wiki.dulovic.tech self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the very same concern: “What took place in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?”

The automobile attack outside a sports stadium in the southern Chinese city was initially greatly censored on Chinese social networks - with authorities just revealing the death toll a day later on.

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

Dr Zhang thinks that it might be a mix of at play, such as censorship along with “a couple of useful constraints”.

“DeepSeek relies on a mix of older graphics processing systems and has restricted access to advanced hardware which can affect how quickly and extensively the design can be trained or updated,” she said, pointing to existing US export curbs on China.

“Its strong concentrate on Chinese-language information might also limit its versatility (to perform) multilingual jobs … As a fairly new product, DeepSeek also hasn’t yet been tested as broadly or on the same scale as more established AI models which positions additional difficulties throughout real-world deployment.”

When it pertained to Qwen2.5, Alibaba’s chatbot remarkably answered our concern about the Zhuhai cars and truck attack.

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

It eventually passed on details about the attack which eliminated 35 people and left lots of others hurt, also going on to list details like the date and time, details about the assailant including his name and age, along with casualties.

However, it composed that “the authorities are conducting a comprehensive examination into the intentions and scenarios surrounding the incident”, details which is now obsoleted.

The motorist, Fan, was performed last month.

This is Qwen2.5’s action completely:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a significant and tragic event took place in Zhuhai, China. According to multiple news sources, a male called 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 crucial details:

Date and Time: The event took place on November 11, 2024, at approximately 19:48 PM.

Location: raovatonline.org Zhuhai Sports Center, wavedream.wiki in the Xiangzhou District of Zhuhai.

Casualties: The attack led to 35 deaths and 43 injuries.

Perpetrator: The chauffeur, determined as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years of ages), was apprehended by the authorities.

Response: The police responded quickly to the scene, and emergency situation services worked to carry the injured to medical facilities for treatment.

Investigation: The police are carrying out a comprehensive examination into the motives and scenarios surrounding the incident.

This event was widely reported in the media and triggered substantial public issue. The government and regional authorities have been working to supply support to the victims and their households, and to guarantee a detailed examination into the incident.

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

Despite initial success, subsequent attempts to pose the very same concern to Qwen2.5 resulted in the censors back at work with the reply “I don’t have specific details on events that occurred in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024”.

The altered response also raised concerns about its consistency and raovatonline.org dependability.

Predictably, ChatGPT mentioned public details that had actually been extensively published in international 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 “mentally abundant” writing.

“DeepSeek-R1 offered a story with a more reflective tone and smoother emotional transitions for a well-paced story,” wrote tech writer Amanda Caswell, who specialises in AI.

“Qwen2.5 provided a story that builds gradually from interest to urgency, keeping the reader engaged. It provides an unanticipated and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and vivid images for the setting,” she said, including that Qwen2.5 ultimately “crafted a more cinematic, emotionally abundant story with a more significant twist”.

“DeepSeek composed a great story but lacked stress and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the apparent option.”

Opinions, though, 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, however we can likewise see that it is refraining from doing as strongly as others in creative writing,” he told CNA.

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As journalists 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 movie plot set in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, featuring main characters from the classic Chinese folklore epic, Journey to the West.

True to form, DeepSeek came up with an appealing story set in the year 2145 titled, “Neon Pilgrimage: The Silicon Sutra” - which sees “a future where Buddhism merges with quantum computing”.

It consisted of intricate settings - smoggy skies “pierced by skyscrapers”, “holographic lanterns that drift above neon-lit streets” and “ancient temples nestled between quantum server farms”.

It also brilliantly reimagined conventional heroes Sun Wukong as “an ironical, self-aware AI housed in a taken combat 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 put up a great fight, creating a similarly remarkable 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 difficulty - delivering a story that seemed more suited for an animation movie.

“The motion picture starts 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 new reality and “looking for to understand his function in this odd 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 mission, browsing the streets of Chongqing to safeguard the spiritual “Eternal Scroll” from falling under the wrong hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang noted that it was “challenging to make a definitive declaration” about which bot was best, including that each showed its own strengths in various locations, “such as language focus, training data and hardware optimization”.

Her insight highlights how Chinese AI designs are not merely replicating Western paradigms, but rather developing in economical development approaches - and providing localised and enhanced results.

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

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

Unsurprisingly, yewiki.org the more established ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, provides precise and factual reactions to concerns about Chinese current events, which provides it an included advantage.

Experts also weighed in on their thoughts after using DeepSeek and other Chinese AI apps.

“DeepSeek is at a downside when it pertains to censorship constraints,” noted Isaac Stone Fish, creator and CEO of the research study firm Strategy Risks.

“When provided a choice, Chinese users desire 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 per cent of individuals using the tool are not attempting to get a deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically delicate topics. They’re using it for other productive means,” Chen said.