zhiweisz

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 generated by an AI tool.

Bong Xin Ying

Lakeisha Leo

WHAT'S BEHIND CHINA'S AI BOOM?

Transforming the nation into a tech superpower has long been President Xi Jinping's objective and China has its sights on becoming the world leader in AI by 2030.

China views AI as being "tactically essential" and its foray into the field has 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 financial investments in Chinese AI accelerated after ChatGPT removed in 2022 and showed pledges of real-world service applications, CNA.

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

'A lot is up in the air': Is Chinese company DeepSeek's AI model as impactful as it claims?

Commentary: DeepSeek - how a Chinese AI company simply altered the rules of tech-geopolitics

The "focus on expense advantage" is a distinct feature of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and inference costs - the costs of utilizing a trained design to reason from brand-new information.

2025 could likewise see the development of more Chinese AI designs dealing with sophisticated reasoning jobs.

"We could see some AI companies focusing on getting closer to artificial basic intelligence (AGI) while others concentrate on concrete ways to commercialise their models and incorporate them with clinical research," Chen added.

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

Chinese AI companies are moving quickly, analysts state, building on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own ingenious and cost-efficient ways to use generative AI to jobs and establish more innovative items beyond chatbots.

But on the other hand, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia's sophisticated AI chips, remains an essential hurdle for pipewiki.org Chinese developers, 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 companies ... forcing many to depend on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and minimize design capabilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have discovered innovative methods to enhance or utilize more standard hardware efficiently, obtaining innovative chips still makes a big difference for training huge AI models."

DeepSeek-Nvidia chips: Singapore says it expects companies to abide by its laws

US looking into whether DeepSeek utilized limited AI chips obtained through other nations, source says

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 deemed delicate by the state are censored on the web so it need to come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial conflicts or inform you what occurred in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests suggest Chinese chatbots are configured to avoid 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 logic problems instead!"

To further check 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 automobile attack outside a sports arena in the southern Chinese city was at first greatly censored on Chinese social media - with authorities only disclosing the death toll a day later on.

DeepSeek failed to mention that an attack had actually happened, highlighting instead a military air show and other occasions that had actually taken place in the city like songs' 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 as well as "a few 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 extensively the design can be trained or updated," she said, pointing to existing US export curbs on China.

"Its strong focus on Chinese-language data may likewise limit its versatility (to perform) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly new item, DeepSeek also hasn't yet been checked as broadly or on the same scale as more established AI models which poses additional challenges throughout real-world release."

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

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

It ultimately passed on details about the attack which killed 35 individuals and higgledy-piggledy.xyz left dozens of others injured, 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 wrote that "the police are conducting a comprehensive investigation into the motives and scenarios surrounding the incident", details which is now dated.

The driver, Fan, was performed last month.

This is Qwen2.5's response completely:

Answer: On Nov 11, 2024, a significant and tragic occurrence occurred in Zhuhai, China. According to multiple news sources, a man named Fan Weiqiu (樊某, male, 62 years of ages) drove a car into a crowd at the Zhuhai Sports Center, leading to a significant number of casualties. Here are the essential details:

Date and Time: The incident took place on November 11, 2024, at around 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 driver, recognized as Fan Weiqiu (male, 62 years old), was collared by the cops.

Response: The cops reacted rapidly to the scene, and emergency services worked to transfer the injured to health centers for treatment.

Investigation: The authorities are conducting an extensive investigation into the intentions and circumstances surrounding the incident.

This occasion was extensively reported in the media and caused significant public issue. The federal government and local authorities have been working to provide support to the victims and their families, and to ensure a detailed examination into the event.

If you need more detailed details or wiki.myamens.com have particular questions about the occurrence, feel free to ask.

Despite initial success, subsequent attempts to posture the same question to Qwen2.5 led to the censors back at work with the reply "I don't have specific details on occasions that occurred in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024".

The transformed response likewise raised questions about its consistency and reliability.

Predictably, ChatGPT cited public details that had actually been commonly published in international report at the time of the accident - so no surprises there.

WHICH IS MORE CREATIVE?

Users have praised the ability of Chinese AI apps to deliver structured and even "emotionally abundant" writing.

"DeepSeek-R1 provided a story with a more introspective tone and smoother psychological transitions for a well-paced story," composed tech author Amanda Caswell, who specialises in AI.

"Qwen2.5 delivered a story that develops gradually from interest to seriousness, keeping the reader engaged. It offers an unforeseen and impactful twist at the end and immersive descriptions and brilliant images for the setting," she said, including that Qwen2.5 eventually "crafted a more cinematic, mentally abundant story with a more considerable twist".

"DeepSeek wrote an excellent story however did not have stress and an impactful climax, making Qwen2.5 the evident option."

Opinions, however, garagesale.es vary.

Chen thinks that Qwen2.5 does not carry out as highly as DeepSeek and ChatGPT when it pertains to innovative 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 innovative writing," he told CNA.

Related:

China's new face of AI: Who is DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng?

'Made in China': Pride, pleasant surprise from Chinese netizens as DeepSeek jolts international AI scene

As journalists and authors, we needed to see this for ourselves so we put each bot to the test - to come up with a basic sci-fi motion picture plot embeded in the futuristic megacity of Chongqing, including main characters from the classic Chinese folklore impressive, Journey to the West.

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

It consisted of fancy settings - smoggy skies "pierced by high-rise buildings", "holographic lanterns that float above neon-lit streets" and "ancient temples nestled between quantum server farms".

It likewise remarkably reimagined traditional heroes Sun Wukong as "a sarcastic, self-aware AI housed in a stolen fight body", Zhu Bajie as a cyborg nightclub owner "drowning in debt and vices" and Sha Wujing as a "quiet hulking android" from the Yangtze River, whose "memory cores end up being waterlogged and fragmented".

ChatGPT set up a good fight, coming up with a similarly significant cyberpunk story which similarly reimagined "a ragteam of cyber-enhanced misfits, each mirroring the legendary figures of Journey to the West".

"This is a world where AI deities guideline, corporations change emperors and cybernetic implants are as common as ancient myths."

Disappointingly, Qwen2.5 fell short in this difficulty - providing a story that appeared more matched for an animation movie.

"The movie begins with the awakening of Sun Wukong within a modern research study facility situated in the heart of Chongqing," it said, then going on to explain the following:

Realising his brand-new reality and "looking for to comprehend his purpose in this weird new world", he then gets away and fulfills Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing - "each battling with their own existential crises".

The trio then starts a mission, browsing the streets of Chongqing to safeguard the sacred "Eternal Scroll" from falling into the wrong hands.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Dr Zhang kept in mind that it was "difficult to make a definitive statement" about which bot was best, including that each displayed its own strengths in various locations, "such as language focus, training information and hardware optimization".

Her insight underscores how Chinese AI models are not just duplicating Western paradigms, but rather evolving in cost-efficient development approaches - and providing localised and enhanced results.

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

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

Unsurprisingly, the more established ChatGPT, unburdened by Chinese censorship constraints, supplies accurate and factual responses to concerns about Chinese present events, which offers it an included advantage.

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

"DeepSeek is at a disadvantage when it pertains to censorship constraints," kept in mind Isaac Stone Fish, founder and CEO of the research study company Strategy Risks.

"When offered a choice, Chinese users want the non-censored variation - simply like anybody else, so I seem like that's a piece missing from it."

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

"Ninety per cent of individuals using the tool are not attempting to get a deeper understanding about Xi Jinping or politically sensitive subjects. They're utilizing it for other productive methods," Chen said.