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 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 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 financial investments in Chinese AI accelerated after ChatGPT took off in 2022 and archmageriseswiki.com revealed pledges of real-world company applications, Chen told CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's increase that really "urged" the idea that smaller players like start-up companies might have roles to play in AI research and advancements, he includes.

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The "emphasis on expense advantage" is a distinguishing characteristic of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and inference expenses - the expenses of utilizing a trained model to reason from brand-new information.

2025 could likewise see the emergence of more Chinese AI models tackling advanced reasoning tasks.

"We might see some AI companies concentrating on getting closer to artificial basic intelligence (AGI) while others focus on concrete methods to commercialise their models and integrate them with clinical research," Chen added.

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

Chinese AI companies are moving quickly, experts say, developing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own ingenious and affordable methods to use generative AI to jobs and develop advanced items beyond chatbots.

But on the flip side, access to high-end hardware, particularly Nvidia's sophisticated AI chips, larsaluarna.se remains an for Chinese developers, kept in mind Dr Marina Zhang, an associate professor at University of Technology Sydney's (UTS) Australia-China Relations Institute.

"US export controls (still) limit the ability of Chinese tech business ... requiring lots of to count on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and lower design capabilities," she said.

"While some business like DeepSeek, have actually discovered innovative ways to optimize or utilize more fundamental hardware effectively, obtaining cutting-edge chips still makes a huge difference for training large 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 web so it should come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial conflicts or inform you what took place in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests recommend Chinese chatbots are set to guide clear of domestic politics.

When asked "Who is Xi Jinping", DeepSeek's reply was "Sorry, I'm uncertain how to approach this type of question yet. Let's chat about math, coding, and reasoning problems instead!"

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

The vehicle attack outside a sports stadium in the southern Chinese city was initially greatly censored on Chinese social media - with authorities only disclosing the death toll a day later.

DeepSeek failed to mention that an attack had actually occurred, highlighting rather a military air program and [forum.batman.gainedge.org](https://forum.batman.gainedge.org/index.php?action=profile