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 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 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 crucial" and its venture 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 accelerated after ChatGPT removed in 2022 and revealed guarantees of real-world organization applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's rise that really "urged" the concept that smaller sized players like start-up companies could have roles to play in AI research study and developments, he adds.

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The "emphasis on cost benefit" is a distinctive feature of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and inference costs - the expenses of using a trained model to reason from brand-new data.

2025 could likewise see the development of more Chinese AI designs 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 ways to commercialise their designs and integrate them with scientific research," Chen included.

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

Chinese AI companies are moving quickly, experts state, developing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own ingenious and cost-efficient ways to apply generative AI to jobs and establish more advanced products beyond chatbots.

But on the flip side, access to high-end hardware, particularly Nvidia's advanced AI chips, remains an essential 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 capability of Chinese tech business ... forcing numerous to count on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and lower design capabilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have found creative ways to optimize or use more fundamental hardware effectively, obtaining advanced chips still makes a big difference for training really 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 deemed delicate by the state are censored on the web so it ought to come as no surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disagreements or inform you what occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests suggest 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 issues instead!"

To even more evaluate for precision and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the exact same concern: "What took place in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?"

The car attack outside a sports arena in the southern Chinese city was initially heavily censored on Chinese social networks - with authorities just divulging the death toll a day later on.

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

"DeepSeek depends on a mix of older graphics processing systems and has actually limited access to innovative hardware which can affect how quickly and thoroughly the model can be trained or upgraded," she said, indicating existing US export curbs on China.

"Its strong focus on Chinese-language data may also limit its flexibility (to bring out) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly new product, DeepSeek likewise hasn't yet been tested as broadly or on the exact same scale as more recognized AI models which poses extra difficulties during real-world implementation."

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

That wanted several repeated efforts - four triggers to be exact - in a period of around 20 minutes.

It eventually communicated details about the attack which killed 35 individuals and left dozens of others hurt, likewise 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 composed that "the authorities are conducting an extensive investigation into the intentions and scenarios surrounding the incident", details which is now dated.

The chauffeur, Fan, yewiki.org was performed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's action completely:

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

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