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)

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Bong Xin Ying

Lakeisha Leo

WHAT lags 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 foray into the field has actually been "years in the making", said Chen Qiheng, an associated scientist at the Asia Society Policy Institute's Center for China Analysis.

Private and public investments in Chinese AI sped up after ChatGPT removed in 2022 and revealed pledges of real-world organization applications, Chen told CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's increase that truly "encouraged" the concept that smaller sized players like start-up companies might have roles to play in AI research study and advancements, he adds.

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The "emphasis on cost advantage" is an of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and inference expenses - the costs of using a trained design to draw conclusions from new data.

2025 might also see the emergence of more Chinese AI designs dealing with advanced thinking tasks.

"We might see some AI companies focusing on getting closer to artificial basic intelligence (AGI) while others concentrate on concrete methods to commercialise their models and incorporate them with scientific research study," Chen included.

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

Chinese AI companies are moving quickly, analysts say, building on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own ingenious and economical methods to use generative AI to tasks and establish advanced items beyond chatbots.

But on the other side, access to high-end hardware, particularly Nvidia's advanced AI chips, remains a crucial difficulty for Chinese designers, kept in mind Dr Marina Zhang, an associate professor at University of Technology Sydney's (UTS) Australia-China Relations Institute.

"US export controls (still) restrict the ability of Chinese tech companies ... requiring numerous to depend on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and decrease design capabilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have found creative ways to optimize or utilize more basic hardware effectively, obtaining cutting-edge chips still makes a huge difference for training huge 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, subjects considered delicate 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 yewiki.org tell you what happened 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 kind of concern yet. Let's chat about math, coding, and reasoning problems rather!"

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

DeepSeek failed to discuss that an attack had actually taken location, highlighting rather a military air program and other occasions that had taken place in the city like singles' day shopping sales along with sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang believes that it may be a mix of elements at play, such as censorship in addition to "a few practical constraints".

"DeepSeek depends on a mix of older graphics processing units and has restricted access to cutting-edge 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 likewise limit its adaptability (to carry out) multilingual tasks ... As a fairly new item, DeepSeek also hasn't yet been checked as broadly or on the very same scale as more established AI models which postures additional challenges throughout real-world release."

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

That was after several duplicated efforts - 4 prompts to be precise - in a period of around 20 minutes.

It eventually relayed details about the attack which killed 35 individuals and left lots of others injured, also 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 police are carrying out a comprehensive investigation into the intentions and circumstances surrounding the incident", details which is now obsoleted.

The chauffeur, Fan, was executed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's action in full:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a major and [forum.batman.gainedge.org](https://forum.batman.gainedge.org/index.php?action=profile