How do Chinese AI bots stack up against ChatGPT? We put them to the test

The heat is on as China’s tech 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 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 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 “strategically 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 investments in Chinese AI sped up after ChatGPT removed in 2022 and revealed promises of real-world service applications, Chen told CNA.

But it was DeepSeek’s increase that truly “urged” the concept that smaller gamers like start-up firms might have functions to play in AI research study and developments, he includes.

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The “focus on cost benefit” is an unique function of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and inference costs - the expenses of utilizing a trained model to draw conclusions from new information.

2025 might also see the introduction of more Chinese AI designs taking on sophisticated reasoning tasks.

“We could see some AI companies focusing on getting closer to artificial general intelligence (AGI) while others concentrate on concrete methods to commercialise their models and integrate them with clinical research,” Chen added.

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

Chinese AI companies are moving quickly, analysts state, constructing on DeepSeek’s momentum to come up with their own ingenious and economical ways to apply generative AI to jobs and establish advanced items beyond chatbots.

But on the flip side, access to high-end hardware, particularly Nvidia’s advanced AI chips, remains an essential obstacle for Chinese designers, 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 companies … requiring lots of to count on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and decrease design capabilities,” she said.

“While some companies like DeepSeek, have discovered creative methods to optimize or utilize more fundamental hardware efficiently, obtaining advanced chips still makes a huge distinction for training very big 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, subjects considered delicate by the state are censored on the internet so it need to come as no 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 set to stay away from domestic politics.

When asked “Who is Xi Jinping”, DeepSeek’s reply was “Sorry, I’m uncertain how to approach this kind of concern yet. Let’s chat about mathematics, coding, and logic problems instead!”

To even more check for precision and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the exact same concern: “What happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?”

The cars and truck attack outside a sports stadium in the southern Chinese city was initially heavily censored on Chinese social networks - with authorities just disclosing the death toll a day later.

DeepSeek failed to discuss that an attack had happened, highlighting instead a military air program and other occasions that had actually occurred in the city like songs’ day shopping sales in addition to sports and cultural activities.

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

“DeepSeek relies on a mix of older graphics processing units and has actually limited access to cutting-edge hardware which can affect how rapidly and extensively the design can be trained or upgraded,” she said, pointing to existing US export curbs on China.

“Its strong concentrate on Chinese-language information may also limit its flexibility (to perform) multilingual jobs … As a fairly brand-new item, DeepSeek likewise hasn’t yet been evaluated as broadly or on the same scale as more recognized AI designs which postures additional obstacles during real-world release.”

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

That sought numerous duplicated attempts - 4 prompts to be precise - in a span of around 20 minutes.

It ultimately passed on details about the attack which eliminated 35 people and left lots of others injured, 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 thorough investigation into the motives and situations surrounding the incident”, details which is now outdated.

The driver, Fan, was executed last month.

This is Qwen2.5’s response in full:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a significant and genbecle.com awful event happened in Zhuhai, China. According to multiple news sources, a guy named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years of ages) drove a vehicle into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, leading to a substantial variety of casualties. Here are the crucial details:

Date and Time: The incident happened on November 11, 2024, at around 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 chauffeur, recognized as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years of ages), was nabbed by the authorities.

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

Investigation: The police are carrying out a thorough investigation into the motives and situations surrounding the event.

This event was commonly reported in the media and caused significant public issue. The federal government and local authorities have been working to provide support to the victims and their households, and to guarantee a detailed investigation into the incident.

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

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

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

Predictably, ChatGPT mentioned public details that had actually been extensively released in global news reports at the time of the mishap - so not a surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

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

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

“Qwen2.5 provided a story that builds slowly from interest to seriousness, keeping the reader engaged. It uses an unexpected and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and vivid imagery for the setting,” she said, including that Qwen2.5 eventually “crafted a more cinematic, emotionally abundant story with a more substantial twist”.

“DeepSeek composed a good story but lacked tension and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the apparent choice.”

Opinions, though, vary.

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

”(Qwen2.5) is on par with DeepSeek V3 on certain jobs, however we can also see that it is refraining from doing as strongly as others in imaginative writing,” he informed 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 set in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, featuring main characters from the traditional Chinese folklore legendary, Journey to the West.

True to form, DeepSeek came up with 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 consisted of fancy 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 conventional heroes Sun Wukong as “a sarcastic, self-aware AI housed in a stolen battle body”, Zhu Bajie as a cyborg nightclub owner “drowning in financial obligation and vices” and Sha Wujing as a “quiet hulking android” from the Yangtze River, whose “memory cores become waterlogged and fragmented”.

ChatGPT put up a good battle, coming up with a similarly remarkable cyberpunk story which likewise 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 typical as ancient myths.”

Disappointingly, Qwen2.5 fell short in this difficulty - delivering a storyline that appeared more matched for an animation film.

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

Realising his brand-new reality and “seeking to understand his purpose in this weird brand-new world”, he then leaves and fulfills Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - “each dealing with their own existential crises”.

The trio then embarks on a mission, navigating the streets of Chongqing to protect the spiritual “Eternal Scroll” from falling into the wrong hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

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

Her insight underscores how Chinese AI models are not merely reproducing Western paradigms, but rather evolving in cost-effective innovation methods - and providing localised and improved results.

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

DeepSeek’s sci-fi motion picture plot demonstrated its innovative flair that made for a more engaging and imaginative 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 concerns about Chinese current occasions, which provides it an included advantage.

Experts also 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, creator and CEO of the research study company Strategy Risks.

“When provided an option, Chinese users desire the non-censored version - much like anyone 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, particularly for Chinese users.

“Ninety per cent of people using the tool are not trying to get a much deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically delicate topics. They’re utilizing it for other productive methods,” Chen said.