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 created 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, hb9lc.org an associated researcher at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis.

Private and public financial investments in Chinese AI accelerated after ChatGPT removed in 2022 and showed guarantees 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 companies might have functions to play in AI research and advancements, he adds.

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The "focus on expense advantage" is a distinct feature of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and reasoning costs - the expenses of using a trained design to draw conclusions from new data.

2025 might likewise see the development of more Chinese AI designs taking on advanced reasoning tasks.

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

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

Chinese AI companies are moving rapidly, analysts say, building on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and economical methods to apply generative AI to jobs and develop more sophisticated products beyond chatbots.

But on the flip side, access to high-end hardware, particularly Nvidia's innovative AI chips, remains a crucial hurdle for Chinese designers, 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 ability of Chinese tech business ... forcing numerous to rely on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and reduce model abilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have actually found imaginative ways to enhance or use more standard hardware efficiently, obtaining cutting-edge chips still makes a big distinction for training huge AI models."

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So how do Chinese AI bots match up 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 internet so it should come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial conflicts or inform you what occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests recommend Chinese chatbots are set to avoid 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 further test for accuracy and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the same concern: "What took place in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?"

The automobile attack outside a sports arena in the southern Chinese city was initially heavily censored on Chinese social networks - with authorities just revealing the death toll a day later.

DeepSeek failed to point out that an attack had occurred, highlighting rather a military air program and other occasions that had happened in the city like songs' day shopping sales along with sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang thinks that it might be a mix of factors at play, such as censorship in addition to "a couple of practical constraints".

"DeepSeek depends on a mix of older graphics processing units and has limited access to innovative hardware which can affect how quickly and thoroughly the model can be trained or updated," she said, indicating existing US export curbs on China.

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

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

That was after numerous repeated efforts - 4 triggers to be precise - in a period of around 20 minutes.

It eventually communicated details about the attack which eliminated 35 individuals and left lots of others hurt, 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 cops are carrying out a thorough investigation into the intentions and circumstances surrounding the occurrence", details which is now obsoleted.

The chauffeur, Fan, was carried out last month.

This is Qwen2.5's response completely:

Answer: On Nov 11, [forum.batman.gainedge.org](https://forum.batman.gainedge.org/index.php?action=profile