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 lags CHINA'S AI BOOM?

Transforming the nation into a tech superpower has 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 "strategically essential" 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 investments in Chinese AI sped up after ChatGPT removed in 2022 and guarantees of real-world business applications, Chen told CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's rise that actually "encouraged" the concept that smaller players like start-up companies could have functions to play in AI research study and developments, he includes.

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The "focus on expense advantage" is a distinguishing characteristic of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and reasoning costs - the costs of using a trained model to draw conclusions from brand-new data.

2025 could also see the introduction of more Chinese AI designs dealing with advanced thinking tasks.

"We might see some AI companies concentrating on getting closer to synthetic general intelligence (AGI) while others concentrate on concrete ways to commercialise their designs 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, experts state, developing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and cost-effective methods to apply generative AI to tasks and establish more sophisticated items beyond chatbots.

But on the other hand, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia's sophisticated AI chips, remains a key difficulty 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) restrict the ability of Chinese tech business ... requiring numerous to rely on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and reduce design capabilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have found innovative methods to optimize or use more basic hardware effectively, obtaining innovative chips still makes a huge difference for training really large AI designs."

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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 deemed sensitive by the state are censored on the web so it need to come as no surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disputes or inform you what occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests recommend Chinese chatbots are set 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 logic issues instead!"

To further test for accuracy and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the exact same question: "What took place 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 media - with authorities just divulging the death toll a day later on.

DeepSeek failed to mention that an attack had actually happened, highlighting rather a military air program and other events that had occurred in the city like songs' day shopping sales along with 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 useful constraints".

"DeepSeek counts on a mix of older graphics processing systems and has actually limited access to innovative hardware which can impact how rapidly and extensively the design can be trained or upgraded," she said, pointing to existing US export curbs on China.

"Its strong focus on Chinese-language information might also restrict its adaptability (to carry out) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly brand-new product, DeepSeek also hasn't yet been evaluated as broadly or on the exact same scale as more established AI models which presents extra difficulties during real-world implementation."

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

That sought numerous duplicated attempts - 4 triggers to be exact - in a span of around 20 minutes.

It eventually passed on details about the attack which eliminated 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, along with casualties.

However, it wrote that "the police are conducting a thorough examination into the motives and situations surrounding the incident", details which is now obsoleted.

The chauffeur, Fan, was executed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's action completely:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a significant and terrible event happened in Zhuhai, China. According to several news sources, a male named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, setiathome.berkeley.edu male, 62 years old) drove a vehicle into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, resulting in a significant number of casualties. Here are the essential details:

Date and Time: The event occurred 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 chauffeur, determined as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years old), was captured by the cops.

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