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)

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 goal and China has its sights on ending up being the world leader in AI by 2030.

China views AI as being "tactically essential" and its foray 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 surgiteams.com public financial investments in Chinese AI accelerated after ChatGPT removed in 2022 and revealed promises of real-world service applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's increase that really "encouraged" the concept that smaller players like start-up firms might have roles to play in AI research study and developments, he includes.

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The "emphasis on expense benefit" is a distinguishing characteristic of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and inference costs - the expenses of using a trained model to draw conclusions from brand-new information.

2025 might also see the development of more Chinese AI models taking on sophisticated reasoning tasks.

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

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

Chinese AI business are moving quickly, experts state, constructing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own ingenious and economical ways to apply generative AI to tasks and establish more sophisticated items beyond chatbots.

But on the other side, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia's advanced AI chips, remains an essential obstacle for Chinese designers, noted Dr Marina Zhang, an associate professor at University of Technology Sydney's (UTS) Australia-China Relations Institute.

"US export controls (still) limit the capability of Chinese tech business ... forcing numerous to depend on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and decrease model capabilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have discovered creative ways to enhance or utilize more basic hardware effectively, obtaining innovative chips still makes a big distinction for training extremely big 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 need to come as no surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disagreements or tell you what took place in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests suggest Chinese chatbots are set to steer clear of domestic politics.

When asked "Who is Xi Jinping", DeepSeek's reply was "Sorry, I'm uncertain how to approach this kind of question yet. Let's chat about math, coding, and reasoning issues rather!"

To further test for precision and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the very same question: "What occurred in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?"

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

DeepSeek failed to discuss that an attack had actually happened, highlighting rather a military air show and other occasions 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 might be a mix of elements 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 actually limited access to innovative hardware which can impact how rapidly and thoroughly the design can be trained or updated," she said, indicating existing US export curbs on China.

"Its strong concentrate on Chinese-language information may likewise limit its versatility (to perform) multilingual tasks ... As a fairly new item, DeepSeek likewise hasn't yet been evaluated as broadly or on the very same scale as more recognized AI models which postures extra obstacles during real-world deployment."

When it pertained to Qwen2.5, Alibaba's chatbot remarkably answered our concern about the Zhuhai cars and truck attack.

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

It ultimately passed on details about the attack which killed 35 individuals and left dozens of others hurt, 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 composed that "the cops are conducting an extensive examination into the intentions and situations surrounding the event", details which is now dated.

The chauffeur, Fan, was executed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's action in complete:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a major and tragic event took place in Zhuhai, China. According to multiple news sources, a guy named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, [forum.batman.gainedge.org](https://forum.batman.gainedge.org/index.php?action=profile