whoosgram

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 generated by an AI tool.

Bong Xin Ying

Lakeisha Leo

WHAT'S BEHIND CHINA'S AI BOOM?

Transforming the nation 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 "strategically crucial" 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 financial investments in Chinese AI accelerated after ChatGPT took off in 2022 and showed guarantees of real-world company applications, Chen told CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's rise that actually "urged" the concept that smaller sized players like start-up firms might have functions to play in AI research study and developments, he adds.

'A lot is up in the air': Is Chinese firm DeepSeek's AI design as impactful as it claims?

Commentary: DeepSeek - how a Chinese AI company simply changed the rules of tech-geopolitics

The "focus on expense benefit" is a distinguishing characteristic of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and inference expenses - the costs of using a trained design to reason from new information.

2025 could likewise see the development of more Chinese AI models tackling innovative reasoning tasks.

"We could see some AI firms focusing on getting closer to artificial basic intelligence (AGI) while others concentrate on concrete methods to commercialise their models and incorporate them with scientific research study," Chen included.

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

Chinese AI companies are moving rapidly, analysts say, constructing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own ingenious and cost-efficient ways to use generative AI to jobs and develop advanced items beyond chatbots.

But on the flip side, access to high-end hardware, particularly Nvidia's innovative AI chips, remains a key difficulty for Chinese designers, noted Dr Marina Zhang, an associate teacher at University of Technology Sydney's (UTS) Australia-China Relations Institute.

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

"While some business like DeepSeek, have found imaginative ways to optimize or utilize more basic hardware effectively, obtaining advanced chips still makes a huge distinction for training very large AI models."

DeepSeek-Nvidia chips: Singapore states it expects companies to adhere to its laws

US looking into whether DeepSeek utilized limited AI chips obtained through other countries, source says

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 web so it must come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial conflicts or inform you what happened 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 type of question yet. Let's chat about mathematics, coding, and logic problems rather!"

To even more test for precision and wiki.vst.hs-furtwangen.de self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the exact same concern: "What occurred in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?"

The car attack outside a sports stadium in the southern Chinese city was at first greatly censored on Chinese social media - with authorities only divulging the death toll a day later on.

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

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

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

"Its strong focus on Chinese-language data may likewise restrict its versatility (to perform) multilingual tasks ... As a fairly brand-new item, DeepSeek likewise hasn't yet been tested as broadly or on the exact same scale as more recognized AI designs which presents extra challenges during real-world release."

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

That was after numerous repeated attempts - 4 prompts to be accurate - in a span of around 20 minutes.

It ultimately passed on details about the attack which eliminated 35 people 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 wrote that "the authorities are carrying out an extensive examination into the intentions and scenarios surrounding the event", 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 significant and awful occurrence took place in Zhuhai, China. According to numerous news sources, a man called Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years of ages) drove a car into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, resulting in a substantial variety of casualties. Here are the key details:

Date and Time: The event occurred on November 11, 2024, wakewiki.de at roughly 19:48 PM.

Location: Zhuhai Sports Center, in the Xiangzhou District of Zhuhai.

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

Perpetrator: The driver, determined as (male, 62 years of ages), was collared by the authorities.

Response: The authorities responded rapidly to the scene, and emergency situation services worked to transport the injured to healthcare facilities for treatment.

Investigation: The authorities are performing a thorough investigation into the motives and situations surrounding the occurrence.

This occasion was widely reported in the media and triggered significant public concern. The federal government and regional authorities have actually been working to supply support to the victims and their families, and to ensure a detailed examination into the occurrence.

If you require more detailed details or have specific concerns about the incident, feel free to ask.

Despite preliminary success, subsequent attempts to posture 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 modified reaction likewise raised concerns about its consistency and dependability.

Predictably, ChatGPT cited public details that had actually been widely released in international news reports at the time of the mishap - so not a 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 provided 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 delivered a story that constructs slowly from curiosity to urgency, keeping the reader engaged. It offers an unexpected and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and vivid imagery for the setting," she said, including that Qwen2.5 ultimately "crafted a more cinematic, emotionally abundant story with a more considerable twist".

"DeepSeek composed a good story but lacked stress and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the apparent choice."

Opinions, though, vary.

Chen believes that Qwen2.5 does not carry out as strongly as DeepSeek and ChatGPT when it pertains to imaginative writing.

"(Qwen2.5) is on par with DeepSeek V3 on certain jobs, but we can also see that it is refraining from doing as highly as others in innovative writing," he told CNA.

Related:

China's brand-new face of AI: Who is DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng?

'Made in China': Pride, enjoyable surprise from Chinese netizens as DeepSeek shocks international AI scene

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 classic Chinese folklore epic, Journey to the West.

True to form, setiathome.berkeley.edu DeepSeek developed 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 included fancy 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 brilliantly reimagined traditional heroes Sun Wukong as "an ironical, self-aware AI housed in a stolen battle body", Zhu Bajie as a cyborg club 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 put up an excellent battle, creating a similarly remarkable cyberpunk storyline which similarly 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 - providing a storyline that seemed more fit for an animation film.

"The movie begins 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 brand-new truth and "looking for to comprehend his purpose in this odd new world", he then gets away and fulfills Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - "each dealing with their own existential crises".

The trio then starts a mission, navigating the streets of Chongqing to safeguard the sacred "Eternal Scroll" from falling into the incorrect hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang kept in mind that it was "hard to make a definitive statement" about which bot was best, adding 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 simply reproducing Western paradigms, however rather progressing in cost-effective development techniques - and delivering localised and enhanced outcomes.

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

DeepSeek's sci-fi film plot demonstrated its imaginative flair that produced a more engaging and imaginative story as compared to Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT's efforts.

Unsurprisingly, the more recognized ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, provides precise and factual reactions to concerns about Chinese existing occasions, which gives it an added benefit.

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

"DeepSeek is at a drawback when it pertains to censorship constraints," noted Isaac Stone Fish, founder and wiki.snooze-hotelsoftware.de CEO of the research company Strategy Risks.

"When offered a choice, Chinese users want the non-censored variation - just like anybody 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, specifically for Chinese users.

"Ninety per cent of people utilizing the tool are not trying to get a deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically sensitive subjects. They're utilizing it for other efficient ways," Chen said.