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

This audio is generated by an AI tool.

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 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 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 took off in 2022 and revealed promises of real-world service applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's increase that really "urged" the concept that smaller players like start-up firms might have roles to play in AI research and advancements, he adds.

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

2025 might likewise see the development of more Chinese AI models tackling sophisticated thinking jobs.

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

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

Chinese AI business are moving rapidly, experts state, developing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and affordable methods to apply generative AI to tasks and establish more advanced items beyond chatbots.

But on the other hand, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia's innovative AI chips, remains a key hurdle for Chinese developers, noted 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 business ... forcing many to depend on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and decrease design abilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have actually discovered creative methods to enhance or use more standard hardware effectively, obtaining advanced chips still makes a big 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 considered delicate by the state are censored on the internet so it must come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disagreements or inform you what took place 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 kind of question yet. Let's chat about mathematics, coding, and reasoning problems rather!"

To further evaluate for accuracy and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and the exact same concern: "What happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?"

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

DeepSeek failed to discuss that an attack had actually occurred, highlighting rather a military air program and other occasions that had actually occurred 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 couple of useful constraints".

"DeepSeek counts on a mix of older graphics processing units and has actually restricted access to innovative hardware which can impact how rapidly and extensively the design can be trained or updated," she said, pointing to existing US export curbs on China.

"Its strong focus on Chinese-language information may likewise limit its flexibility (to perform) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly new item, DeepSeek likewise hasn't yet been evaluated as broadly or on the exact same scale as more recognized AI designs which presents additional difficulties during real-world implementation."

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

That sought multiple repeated efforts - four triggers to be accurate - in a span of around 20 minutes.

It eventually communicated 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, in addition to casualties.

However, it wrote that "the police are carrying out an extensive examination into the motives and scenarios surrounding the event", details which is now obsoleted.

The motorist, Fan, was carried out last month.

This is Qwen2.5's response in complete:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a significant and terrible incident happened in Zhuhai, China. According to numerous news sources, a man named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years of ages) drove a vehicle into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, leading to a considerable number of casualties. Here are the crucial details:

Date and Time: The incident occurred on November 11, 2024, at roughly 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, determined as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years of ages), was captured by the authorities.

Response: The cops reacted quickly to the scene, and emergency services worked to carry the injured to medical facilities for treatment.

Investigation: The police are conducting an extensive examination into the motives and scenarios surrounding the occurrence.

This occasion was commonly reported in the media and caused significant public concern. The government and regional authorities have actually been working to supply assistance to the victims and their households, and to guarantee a detailed examination into the occurrence.

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

Despite preliminary success, subsequent attempts to present the exact 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 action also raised concerns about its consistency and reliability.

Predictably, ChatGPT pointed out public details that had been commonly released in worldwide news reports at the time of the accident - so no surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

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

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

"Qwen2.5 delivered a story that builds slowly from interest to seriousness, keeping the reader engaged. It offers 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, mentally rich story with a more considerable twist".

"DeepSeek wrote a good story but did not have tension and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the evident option."

Opinions, however, differ.

Chen believes that Qwen2.5 does not perform as highly 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 strongly 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 motion picture plot embeded in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, featuring main characters from the timeless Chinese folklore legendary, Journey to the West.

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

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

It likewise remarkably 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 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 installed a good battle, coming up with a similarly dramatic 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 typical as ancient misconceptions."

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 situated 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 brand-new world", he then gets away and fulfills Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - "each having a hard time with their own existential crises".

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

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang noted that it was "tough to make a definitive declaration" about which bot was best, adding that each displayed its own strengths in different locations, "such as language focus, training data and hardware optimization".

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

In our tests, each bot showcased their own special strengths, higgledy-piggledy.xyz which certainly made direct contrasts challenging.

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

Unsurprisingly, the more recognized ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, gratisafhalen.be supplies precise and factual reactions to questions about Chinese present events, which offers it an included advantage.

Experts also weighed in on their ideas after using 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 study company Strategy Risks.

"When given a choice, Chinese users desire the non-censored variation - much like anybody 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 per cent of people using the tool are not attempting to get a deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically sensitive subjects. They're using it for other efficient means," Chen said.