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)

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Bong Xin Ying

Lakeisha Leo

WHAT'S BEHIND CHINA'S AI BOOM?

Transforming the country into a tech superpower has 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 "tactically essential" and its venture into the field has actually 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 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 "encouraged" the concept that smaller sized gamers like start-up companies could have functions to play in AI research and advancements, he adds.

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The "focus on expense benefit" is a distinct function of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and inference expenses - the expenses of using a trained model to draw conclusions from brand-new data.

2025 might also see the emergence of more Chinese AI models taking on advanced reasoning tasks.

"We might see some AI firms concentrating on getting closer to synthetic basic intelligence (AGI) while others concentrate on concrete methods to commercialise their designs and integrate them with scientific research study," Chen added.

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

Chinese AI business are moving quickly, analysts state, developing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and affordable ways to use generative AI to tasks and develop advanced items beyond chatbots.

But on the other hand, access to high-end hardware, particularly Nvidia's sophisticated AI chips, remains a crucial obstacle for Chinese developers, hb9lc.org noted Dr Marina Zhang, an associate teacher at University of Technology Sydney's (UTS) Australia-China Relations Institute.

"US export controls (still) restrict the capability of Chinese tech companies ... forcing numerous to count on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and minimize model capabilities," she said.

"While some business like DeepSeek, have actually discovered innovative ways to optimize or utilize more basic hardware effectively, obtaining innovative chips still makes a big distinction for training large 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, topics considered delicate by the state are censored on the internet so it should 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 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 logic issues instead!"

To further 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 cars and truck attack outside a sports stadium in the southern Chinese city was at first heavily censored on Chinese social media - with authorities just revealing the death toll a day later on.

DeepSeek failed to discuss that an attack had taken place, highlighting rather a military air program and other events that had actually occurred in the city like songs' day shopping sales as well as sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang believes that it may be a mix of factors at play, such as censorship as well as "a couple of useful constraints".

"DeepSeek relies on a mix of older graphics processing systems and has actually limited access to advanced hardware which can impact how quickly 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 might also limit its adaptability (to carry out) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly new product, DeepSeek also hasn't yet been checked as broadly or on the same scale as more established AI models which presents extra challenges 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 multiple repeated attempts - four prompts to be exact - in a period of around 20 minutes.

It ultimately relayed details about the attack which 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, in addition to casualties.

However, it wrote that "the police are performing a thorough investigation into the intentions and circumstances surrounding the occurrence", details which is now obsoleted.

The driver, Fan, was performed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's action in complete:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a major and terrible event happened in Zhuhai, China. According to multiple news sources, a man named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years of ages) drove an automobile into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, leading to a considerable number of casualties. Here are the key details:

Date and Time: The event took place on November 11, 2024, at approximately 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 chauffeur, recognized as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years old), was nabbed by the police.

Response: The cops reacted rapidly to the scene, and emergency services worked to carry the injured to hospitals for treatment.

Investigation: The authorities are performing an extensive examination into the intentions and circumstances surrounding the occurrence.

This occasion was extensively reported in the media and triggered substantial public concern. The government and local authorities have actually been working to supply assistance to the victims and their households, and to guarantee a detailed examination into the occurrence.

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

Despite preliminary success, subsequent efforts to present the exact same concern to Qwen2.5 resulted in the censors back at work with the reply "I don't have particular details on events that took place in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024".

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

Predictably, ChatGPT cited public details that had actually been commonly published in worldwide news reports at the time of the accident - so not a surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

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

"DeepSeek-R1 provided a story with a more introspective tone and smoother emotional transitions for a well-paced story," wrote tech writer Amanda Caswell, who specialises in AI.

"Qwen2.5 provided a story that develops gradually from curiosity to urgency, keeping the reader engaged. It provides an unanticipated 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 rich story with a more significant twist".

"DeepSeek wrote a good story but lacked tension and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the obvious choice."

Opinions, however, vary.

Chen thinks that Qwen2.5 does not perform as highly as DeepSeek and ChatGPT when it pertains to innovative 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 creative writing," he informed 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 timeless Chinese folklore epic, Journey to the West.

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

It included elaborate settings - smoggy skies "pierced by skyscrapers", "holographic lanterns that float 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 nightclub owner "drowning in debt 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, developing a similarly dramatic cyberpunk story 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 rule, corporations change emperors and cybernetic implants are as typical as ancient misconceptions."

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

"The motion picture starts with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a modern research center situated in the heart of Chongqing," it said, then going on to explain the following:

Realising his new truth and "looking for to comprehend his purpose in this unusual brand-new world", he then leaves and satisfies Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - "each battling 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 wrong hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang noted that it was "hard to make a conclusive statement" about which bot was best, adding that each showed its own strengths in various areas, "such as language focus, training data and hardware optimization".

Her insight underscores how Chinese AI models are not just reproducing Western paradigms, however rather progressing in economical innovation methods - and providing localised and enhanced outcomes.

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

DeepSeek's sci-fi movie plot showed its innovative flair that produced a more engaging and creative narrative 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 existing events, which gives it an added benefit.

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

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

"When provided an option, Chinese users desire the non-censored version - much 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, particularly for Chinese users.

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