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 video 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 nation into a tech superpower has actually long been President Xi Jinping's objective and China has its sights on ending up being the world leader in AI by 2030.

China views AI as being "strategically 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 investments in Chinese AI sped up after ChatGPT took off in 2022 and showed promises of real-world organization applications, Chen told CNA.

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

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The "focus on expense advantage" is a distinct function of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and reasoning costs - the costs of using a trained model to draw conclusions from brand-new data.

2025 might likewise see the emergence of more Chinese AI models taking on sophisticated thinking jobs.

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

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

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

But on the other hand, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia's innovative AI chips, remains an essential obstacle 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) restrict the capability of Chinese tech business ... forcing numerous to depend on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and lower design capabilities," she said.

"While some business like DeepSeek, have discovered creative methods to optimize or utilize more basic hardware efficiently, obtaining advanced chips still makes a big 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, topics deemed sensitive by the state are censored on the web so it ought to come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disputes or inform you what took place in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests recommend 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 concern yet. Let's chat about mathematics, coding, and reasoning problems instead!"

To even more test for accuracy and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the same question: "What happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?"

The vehicle attack outside a sports stadium in the southern Chinese city was initially greatly censored on Chinese social media - with authorities only revealing the death toll a day later.

DeepSeek failed to discuss that an attack had happened, bio.rogstecnologia.com.br highlighting instead a military air program and other events that had actually taken place 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 elements at play, such as censorship in addition to "a couple of useful constraints".

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

"Its strong concentrate on Chinese-language data may likewise limit its adaptability (to perform) multilingual tasks ... As a fairly new product, DeepSeek likewise hasn't yet been evaluated as broadly or on the same scale as more established AI designs which postures additional difficulties throughout real-world implementation."

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

That sought multiple repeated attempts - four prompts to be exact - in a span of around 20 minutes.

It ultimately communicated details about the attack which killed 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 authorities are performing an extensive investigation into the motives and circumstances surrounding the incident", details which is now dated.

The driver, Fan, was executed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's action in full:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a major and terrible occurrence happened in Zhuhai, China. According to several news sources, a man called Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years old) drove a cars and truck into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, resulting in a considerable variety of casualties. Here are the crucial details:

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