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 startup DeepSeek and OpenAI's ChatGPT. (Photos: Reuters/Dado Ruvic, AFP/Sebastien Bozon)

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Bong Xin Ying

Lakeisha Leo

WHAT lags CHINA'S AI BOOM?

Transforming the country 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 crucial" and its foray into the field has been "years in the making", said Chen Qiheng, an associated 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 showed promises of real-world business applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's rise that truly "urged" the idea that smaller sized gamers like start-up companies could have functions to play in AI research study and advancements, he adds.

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The "focus on cost advantage" is a distinguishing characteristic of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and inference expenses - the costs of using a trained design to draw conclusions from brand-new information.

2025 might also see the emergence of more Chinese AI models tackling sophisticated reasoning jobs.

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

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

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

But on the other side, access to high-end hardware, particularly Nvidia's sophisticated AI chips, remains a crucial obstacle for Chinese developers, noted 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 reduce model capabilities," she said.

"While some business like DeepSeek, have actually discovered innovative ways to optimize or utilize more standard hardware efficiently, obtaining innovative chips still makes a huge distinction for training really big 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 considered sensitive by the state are censored on the internet so it must come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disputes or tell you what occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests suggest 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 math, coding, and reasoning issues instead!"

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

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

DeepSeek failed to point out that an attack had taken location, highlighting instead a military air show and other events that had occurred in the city like singles' day shopping sales in addition to sports and cultural activities.

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

"DeepSeek counts on a mix of older graphics processing systems and has restricted access to advanced hardware which can affect how rapidly and thoroughly 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 also restrict its adaptability (to perform) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly new item, DeepSeek also hasn't yet been evaluated as broadly or on the very same scale as more established AI designs which positions extra challenges during real-world implementation."

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

That wanted several repeated attempts - four triggers to be exact - in a period of around 20 minutes.

It ultimately passed on details about the attack which killed 35 people and left dozens of others injured, also going on to list details like the date and time, details about the assailant including his name and age, as well as casualties.

However, it composed that "the authorities are performing a comprehensive examination into the motives and circumstances surrounding the event", details which is now outdated.

The motorist, Fan, garagesale.es was performed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's reaction in full:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a major and terrible occurrence took place in Zhuhai, China. According to several news sources, a man named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years old) drove a vehicle into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, resulting in a substantial variety of casualties. Here are the key details:

Date and Time: The incident 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, [forum.batman.gainedge.org](https://forum.batman.gainedge.org/index.php?action=profile