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’S BEHIND 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 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 associated 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 showed guarantees of real-world business applications, Chen told CNA.

But it was DeepSeek’s increase that really “encouraged” the idea that smaller sized players like start-up companies might have functions to play in AI research study and advancements, he adds.

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The “emphasis on cost advantage” is a distinct function of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and inference expenses - the expenses of utilizing a trained design to draw conclusions from brand-new data.

2025 could likewise see the development of more Chinese AI designs dealing with innovative reasoning jobs.

“We could see some AI companies focusing 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 included.

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

Chinese AI companies are moving quickly, analysts say, building on DeepSeek’s momentum to come up with their own ingenious and economical ways to use generative AI to jobs and develop advanced items beyond chatbots.

But on the other hand, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia’s innovative AI chips, remains a crucial difficulty for Chinese developers, kept in mind Dr Marina Zhang, an associate teacher at University of Technology Sydney’s (UTS) Australia-China Relations Institute.

“US export controls (still) restrict the capability of Chinese tech companies … requiring numerous to depend on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and lower model abilities,” she said.

“While some companies like DeepSeek, have actually discovered innovative ways to enhance or use more standard hardware effectively, obtaining innovative chips still makes a huge 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 deemed sensitive by the state are censored on the internet so it need to come as no surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disputes or tell 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 math, coding, and logic issues rather!”

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

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

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

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

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

“Its strong concentrate on Chinese-language data may also restrict its flexibility (to perform) multilingual tasks … As a fairly new item, DeepSeek likewise hasn’t yet been checked as broadly or on the exact same scale as more recognized AI models which poses additional difficulties during real-world release.”

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

That was after several duplicated attempts - 4 triggers to be exact - in a span of around 20 minutes.

It eventually relayed details about the attack which killed 35 individuals and left lots of others hurt, likewise 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 police are carrying out an extensive investigation into the intentions and circumstances surrounding the occurrence”, details which is now obsoleted.

The driver, Fan, was performed 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 multiple news sources, a guy called Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years old) drove a car into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, resulting in a significant variety of casualties. Here are the key details:

Date and Time: The event took place 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 driver, identified as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years of ages), was collared by the authorities.

Response: The cops reacted rapidly to the scene, and emergency services worked to transport the hurt to hospitals for treatment.

Investigation: The police are conducting an extensive investigation into the motives and the event.

This event was widely reported in the media and triggered considerable public concern. The federal government and local authorities have actually been working to offer support to the victims and their families, and to guarantee a detailed investigation into the occurrence.

If you need more detailed details or have specific questions about the event, disgaeawiki.info feel totally free to ask.

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

The transformed response also raised concerns about its consistency and dependability.

Predictably, ChatGPT mentioned public details that had been widely published in worldwide news reports at the time of the mishap - 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 used a story with a more reflective tone and smoother emotional shifts for a well-paced story,” wrote tech author Amanda Caswell, who specialises in AI.

“Qwen2.5 delivered a story that builds slowly from curiosity to seriousness, keeping the reader engaged. It offers an unanticipated and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and vibrant images for the setting,” she said, adding that Qwen2.5 ultimately “crafted a more cinematic, mentally rich story with a more significant twist”.

“DeepSeek wrote an excellent story however lacked tension and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the evident choice.”

Opinions, though, vary.

Chen thinks that Qwen2.5 does not carry out as highly as DeepSeek and ChatGPT when it pertains to innovative writing.

”(Qwen2.5) is on par with DeepSeek V3 on certain jobs, but we can also 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 motion picture plot embeded in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, including main characters from the timeless Chinese folklore epic, Journey to the West.

True to form, DeepSeek created an engaging storyline embeded in the year 2145 entitled, “Neon Pilgrimage: The Silicon Sutra” - which sees “a future where Buddhism merges with quantum computing”.

It included sophisticated settings - smoggy skies “pierced by skyscrapers”, “holographic lanterns that float above neon-lit streets” and “ancient temples nestled between quantum server farms”.

It also brilliantly reimagined conventional heroes Sun Wukong as “a sarcastic, self-aware AI housed in a stolen combat body”, Zhu Bajie as a cyborg bar owner “drowning in debt and vices” and Sha Wujing as a “quiet hulking android” from the Yangtze River, whose “memory cores end up being waterlogged and fragmented”.

ChatGPT set up an excellent fight, coming up with an equally significant 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 guideline, corporations replace emperors and cybernetic implants are as common as ancient misconceptions.”

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

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

Realising his new truth and “looking for to comprehend his purpose in this odd brand-new world”, he then gets away and satisfies Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - “each battling with their own existential crises”.

The trio then embarks on a quest, browsing the streets of Chongqing to safeguard the sacred “Eternal Scroll” from falling into the incorrect hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

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

Her insight underscores how Chinese AI models are not just replicating Western paradigms, however rather evolving in cost-effective innovation methods - and delivering localised and improved results.

In our tests, each bot showcased their own special strengths, which certainly made direct comparisons 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, the more established ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, provides accurate and factual responses to concerns about Chinese present events, which gives it an included benefit.

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

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

“When given an option, Chinese users want the non-censored variation - similar to anybody else, so I seem like that’s a piece missing out on from it.”

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

“Ninety percent of individuals using the tool are not attempting to get a deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically delicate subjects. They’re using it for other productive ways,” Chen said.