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 start-up 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 "strategically crucial" and its venture 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 sped up after ChatGPT removed in 2022 and revealed promises of real-world business applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's rise that truly "urged" the concept that smaller sized gamers like start-up firms could have functions to play in AI research and developments, he includes.

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The "emphasis on cost benefit" is a distinguishing characteristic of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and inference costs - the costs of utilizing a trained model to draw conclusions from new data.

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

"We could see some AI firms focusing on getting closer to synthetic basic intelligence (AGI) while others concentrate on concrete ways to commercialise their designs 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, building on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and affordable ways to apply generative AI to tasks and develop more innovative items beyond chatbots.

But on the other side, access to high-end hardware, particularly Nvidia's innovative AI chips, remains a key 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) limit the capability of Chinese tech companies ... requiring many to depend on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and minimize design abilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have actually found creative ways to enhance or utilize more fundamental hardware efficiently, obtaining innovative chips still makes a huge difference for training large 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 sensitive by the state are censored on the web so it must come as no surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disputes or tell you what occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests recommend Chinese chatbots are set to guide clear of 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 reasoning problems instead!"

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

The vehicle attack outside a sports stadium in the southern Chinese city was at first 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 happened in the city like songs' day shopping sales along with sports and cultural activities.

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

"DeepSeek relies on a mix of older graphics processing systems and has limited access to cutting-edge hardware which can impact how quickly 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 data may likewise restrict its versatility (to perform) multilingual tasks ... As a fairly new product, DeepSeek also hasn't yet been checked as broadly or on the very same scale as more recognized AI designs which postures additional obstacles throughout real-world deployment."

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

That sought numerous duplicated efforts - four triggers to be exact - in a span of around 20 minutes.

It ultimately communicated details about the attack which eliminated 35 individuals and left lots of others injured, likewise going on to note details like the date and time, details about the assailant including his name and age, along with casualties.

However, it wrote that "the police are performing an extensive examination into the intentions and situations surrounding the incident", details which is now obsoleted.

The driver, Fan, was carried out last month.

This is Qwen2.5's response completely:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a major and terrible incident happened in Zhuhai, China. According to several news sources, a male named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, [forum.batman.gainedge.org](https://forum.batman.gainedge.org/index.php?action=profile