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 video 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)

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

China views AI as being “tactically crucial” and its venture into the field has actually 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 investments in Chinese AI accelerated after ChatGPT removed in 2022 and revealed guarantees of real-world organization applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek’s rise that truly “encouraged” the concept that smaller sized gamers like start-up firms might have functions to play in AI research and advancements, he includes.

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The “focus on expense advantage” is a distinguishing characteristic of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and reasoning costs - the expenses of using a trained model to reason from new data.

2025 might also see the development of more Chinese AI models dealing with advanced thinking jobs.

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

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

Chinese AI business are moving rapidly, analysts state, developing on DeepSeek’s momentum to come up with their own innovative and cost-efficient methods to apply generative AI to jobs and establish more sophisticated products beyond chatbots.

But on the flip side, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia’s advanced AI chips, remains a crucial 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) restrict the capability of Chinese tech business … requiring lots of to depend on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and minimize design abilities,” she said.

“While some business like DeepSeek, have discovered creative ways to optimize or use more basic hardware efficiently, obtaining innovative chips still makes a big difference 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 web so it must come as no surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disagreements or tell you what occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests recommend Chinese chatbots are programmed to guide 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 mathematics, coding, and reasoning issues rather!”

To further test for accuracy and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the same concern: “What occurred in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?”

The cars and truck attack outside a sports arena in the southern Chinese city was initially greatly censored on Chinese social networks - with authorities only divulging the death toll a day later on.

DeepSeek failed to discuss that an attack had happened, rather a military air show and other events that had actually taken place in the city like singles’ day shopping sales in addition to sports and cultural activities.

Dr Zhang thinks that it may be a mix of aspects at play, such as censorship along with “a few useful constraints”.

“DeepSeek depends on a mix of older graphics processing units and has actually limited access to cutting-edge hardware which can affect how quickly and thoroughly the model can be trained or updated,” she said, pointing to existing US export curbs on China.

“Its strong concentrate on Chinese-language information may also limit its versatility (to perform) multilingual tasks … As a fairly brand-new product, DeepSeek likewise hasn’t yet been evaluated as broadly or on the very same scale as more recognized AI designs which postures additional obstacles during real-world implementation.”

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

That sought multiple repeated efforts - four triggers to be accurate - in a span of around 20 minutes.

It ultimately relayed details about the attack which killed 35 people and left dozens 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 wrote that “the police are performing a comprehensive investigation into the motives and situations surrounding the occurrence”, details which is now dated.

The motorist, Fan, was performed last month.

This is Qwen2.5’s response completely:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a significant and terrible occurrence took place in Zhuhai, China. According to several news sources, a male named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years old) drove a cars and truck into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, leading to a significant number of casualties. Here are the crucial details:

Date and Time: The event happened 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 motorist, recognized as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years of ages), was captured by the cops.

Response: The police responded rapidly to the scene, and emergency situation services worked to transport the hurt to hospitals for treatment.

Investigation: The police are conducting an extensive examination into the motives and scenarios surrounding the incident.

This event was widely reported in the media and triggered substantial public concern. The government and regional authorities have actually been working to offer assistance to the victims and their households, and to guarantee a detailed examination into the incident.

If you require more detailed details or have particular questions about the incident, feel complimentary to ask.

Despite initial success, subsequent attempts to present the same question to Qwen2.5 resulted in the censors back at work with the reply “I do not have specific details on occasions that happened in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024”.

The transformed response also raised concerns about its consistency and dependability.

Predictably, ChatGPT mentioned public details that had been commonly released in global news reports at the time of the mishap - so not a surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

Users have praised the capability of Chinese AI apps to provide structured and even “mentally abundant” writing.

“DeepSeek-R1 offered a story with a more introspective tone and smoother emotional shifts for a well-paced story,” composed tech author Amanda Caswell, who specialises in AI.

“Qwen2.5 provided a story that develops gradually from interest to urgency, keeping the reader engaged. It offers an unexpected and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and brilliant imagery for the setting,” she said, including that Qwen2.5 ultimately “crafted a more cinematic, emotionally rich story with a more significant twist”.

“DeepSeek composed an excellent story but lacked stress and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the obvious option.”

Opinions, though, differ.

Chen believes that Qwen2.5 does not carry out as strongly as DeepSeek and ChatGPT when it pertains to creative 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 imaginative writing,” he told CNA.

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As journalists and writers, we had to see this for ourselves so we put each bot to the test - to come up with a fundamental sci-fi film plot set in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, featuring main characters from the classic Chinese folklore epic, Journey to the West.

True to form, DeepSeek developed an interesting story set in the year 2145 titled, “Neon Pilgrimage: The Silicon Sutra” - which sees “a future where Buddhism merges with quantum computing”.

It included intricate settings - 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 “a sarcastic, self-aware AI housed in a stolen combat body”, Zhu Bajie as a cyborg bar owner “drowning in debt and vices” and Sha Wujing as a “silent hulking android” from the Yangtze River, whose “memory cores end up being waterlogged and fragmented”.

ChatGPT put up a great battle, developing an equally significant cyberpunk story which similarly reimagined “a ragteam of cyber-enhanced misfits, each mirroring 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 misconceptions.”

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

“The film begins with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a state-of-the-art research center located in the heart of Chongqing,” it said, then going on to explain the following:

Realising his new reality and “looking for to understand his purpose in this weird brand-new world”, he then leaves and meets Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - “each fighting with their own existential crises”.

The trio then embarks on a mission, navigating the streets of Chongqing to protect the sacred “Eternal Scroll” from falling under the incorrect hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang kept in mind that it was “difficult to make a conclusive statement” about which bot was best, including that each showed its own strengths in different areas, “such as language focus, training data and hardware optimization”.

Her insight underscores how Chinese AI models are not merely duplicating Western paradigms, but rather developing in cost-efficient development methods - and archmageriseswiki.com providing localised and enhanced results.

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

DeepSeek’s sci-fi motion picture plot demonstrated its imaginative flair that made for a more engaging and imaginative narrative as compared to Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT’s efforts.

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

Experts also weighed in on their thoughts after using DeepSeek and other Chinese AI apps.

“DeepSeek is at a drawback when it pertains to censorship constraints,” kept in mind Isaac Stone Fish, creator and CEO of the research study firm Strategy Risks.

“When offered a choice, Chinese users desire the non-censored variation - just like anyone else, so I feel like that’s a piece missing out on from it.”

Independent Beijing-based expert Andy Chen Xinran said censorship would not be a dealbreaker when it pertains to AI bots, particularly for Chinese users.

“Ninety percent of individuals using the tool are not attempting to get a much deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically delicate topics. They’re utilizing it for other productive ways,” Chen said.