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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: wiki.vst.hs-furtwangen.de 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 goal and China has its sights on becoming the world leader in AI by 2030.

China views AI as being "strategically important" 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 accelerated after ChatGPT took off in 2022 and revealed guarantees of real-world business applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's increase that actually "urged" the idea that smaller sized players like start-up firms could have roles to play in AI research and advancements, he adds.

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

2025 might also see the development of more Chinese AI designs dealing with innovative reasoning tasks.

"We could see some AI firms concentrating on getting closer to artificial general intelligence (AGI) while others focus on concrete methods to commercialise their models and incorporate them with clinical research," Chen added.

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

Chinese AI companies are moving quickly, analysts say, building on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and cost-efficient methods to use generative AI to jobs and develop more advanced products beyond chatbots.

But on the other side, access to high-end hardware, particularly Nvidia's advanced AI chips, remains a crucial hurdle 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 ability of Chinese tech companies ... requiring many to rely on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and reduce model abilities," she said.

"While some business like DeepSeek, have discovered innovative methods to optimize or utilize more standard hardware effectively, obtaining cutting-edge chips still makes a big difference for training really large AI designs."

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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, topics deemed sensitive by the state are censored on the web so it need to come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disagreements or inform you what took place in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests recommend Chinese chatbots are configured 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 concern yet. Let's chat about mathematics, coding, and logic problems instead!"

To further test for precision and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the same question: "What occurred 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 only disclosing the death toll a day later on.

DeepSeek failed to discuss that an attack had occurred, highlighting rather a military air show and other occasions that had taken place in the city like songs' day shopping sales in addition to 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 relies on a mix of older graphics processing systems and has actually limited access to innovative hardware which can affect how rapidly and extensively the design can be trained or updated," she said, surgiteams.com indicating existing US export curbs on China.

"Its strong concentrate on Chinese-language data may likewise limit its versatility (to carry out) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly brand-new item, DeepSeek also hasn't yet been checked as broadly or on the same scale as more established AI designs which poses extra difficulties throughout real-world implementation."

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

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

It eventually communicated details about the attack which eliminated 35 people and left dozens of others injured, likewise going on to note 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 conducting a comprehensive investigation into the intentions and scenarios surrounding the occurrence", details which is now dated.

The chauffeur, Fan, was performed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's reaction in complete:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, pipewiki.org a significant and awful event happened in Zhuhai, China. According to several news sources, a man named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years old) drove a car into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, resulting in a significant number of casualties. Here are the key details:

Date and Time: The event happened on November 11, 2024, at roughly 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, determined as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years old), was collared by the authorities.

Response: The authorities responded rapidly to the scene, and emergency situation services worked to transfer the injured to health centers for treatment.

Investigation: The police are conducting a thorough examination into the motives and scenarios surrounding the event.

This event was widely reported in the media and triggered significant public issue. The government and local authorities have been working to provide assistance to the victims and their households, and to ensure a detailed examination into the incident.

If you need more detailed details or have particular questions about the incident, do not hesitate to ask.

Despite initial success, subsequent attempts to pose the very same question to Qwen2.5 led to the censors back at work with the reply "I do not have particular details on events that happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024".

The transformed action also raised questions about its consistency and reliability.

Predictably, ChatGPT mentioned public details that had actually been widely published in global report at the time of the accident - so no surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

Users have praised the capability of Chinese AI apps to provide structured and even "emotionally rich" writing.

"DeepSeek-R1 offered a story with a more introspective tone and smoother psychological transitions for a well-paced story," composed tech author Amanda Caswell, who specialises in AI.

"Qwen2.5 delivered a story that builds gradually from interest to urgency, keeping the reader engaged. It uses an unforeseen and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and brilliant imagery for the setting," she said, including that Qwen2.5 eventually "crafted a more cinematic, emotionally abundant story with a more considerable twist".

"DeepSeek wrote a great story however lacked tension and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the evident choice."

Opinions, however, vary.

Chen thinks that Qwen2.5 does not carry out as highly 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 strongly as others in innovative writing," he told CNA.

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As reporters and authors, we needed to see this for ourselves so we put each bot to the test - to come up with a basic sci-fi motion picture plot embeded in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, featuring main characters from the classic Chinese folklore impressive, Journey to the West.

True to form, DeepSeek created an engaging storyline embeded in the year 2145 titled, "Neon Pilgrimage: The Silicon Sutra" - which sees "a future where Buddhism combines with quantum computing".

It consisted of - smoggy skies "pierced by skyscrapers", "holographic lanterns that drift above neon-lit streets" and "ancient temples nestled in between quantum server farms".

It likewise brilliantly reimagined conventional heroes Sun Wukong as "an ironical, self-aware AI housed in a taken combat body", Zhu Bajie as a cyborg club owner "drowning in financial obligation and vices" and Sha Wujing as a "quiet hulking android" from the Yangtze River, whose "memory cores become waterlogged and fragmented".

ChatGPT set up a great fight, coming up with an equally significant cyberpunk storyline which similarly reimagined "a ragteam of cyber-enhanced misfits, each matching the famous figures of Journey to the West".

"This is a world where AI deities guideline, corporations change emperors and cybernetic implants are as typical as ancient myths."

Disappointingly, Qwen2.5 fell short in this challenge - delivering a story that seemed more fit for an animation movie.

"The motion picture begins with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a state-of-the-art research facility situated in the heart of Chongqing," it said, then going on to explain the following:

Realising his new truth and "seeking to understand his purpose in this weird new world", he then leaves and satisfies Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - "each dealing with their own existential crises".

The trio then starts a quest, browsing the streets of Chongqing to protect the spiritual "Eternal Scroll" from falling under the incorrect hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang kept in mind that it was "hard to make a conclusive statement" about which bot was best, including that each displayed its own strengths in various locations, "such as language focus, training data and hardware optimization".

Her insight underscores how Chinese AI models are not just duplicating Western paradigms, but rather evolving in economical development techniques - and providing localised and improved outcomes.

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

DeepSeek's sci-fi film plot showed its imaginative flair that made for a more appealing and creative story as compared to Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT's efforts.

Unsurprisingly, the more established ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, supplies precise and accurate responses to concerns about Chinese current events, which provides it an added benefit.

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

"DeepSeek is at a downside when it pertains to censorship constraints," kept in mind Isaac Stone Fish, founder and CEO of the research study company Strategy Risks.

"When given a choice, Chinese users want the non-censored variation - similar to anyone else, so I feel like that's a piece missing from it."

Independent Beijing-based consultant 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 using the tool are not trying to get a much deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically sensitive topics. They're using it for other efficient means," Chen said.