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)

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Bong Xin Ying

Lakeisha Leo

WHAT AI BOOM?

Transforming the country into a tech superpower has 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 "strategically essential" 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 financial investments in Chinese AI accelerated after ChatGPT removed in 2022 and showed pledges of real-world company applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's increase that really "urged" the concept that smaller sized gamers like start-up firms could have functions to play in AI research study and developments, he includes.

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The "emphasis on expense benefit" is a distinctive feature of Chinese AI, Chen says, hb9lc.org with lower training and inference costs - the expenses of utilizing a trained design to draw conclusions from new information.

2025 might likewise see the emergence of more Chinese AI models tackling sophisticated reasoning tasks.

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

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

Chinese AI business are moving quickly, experts say, constructing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and cost-efficient methods to use 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 a crucial hurdle for Chinese designers, kept in mind 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 ... requiring lots of to rely on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and minimize model capabilities," she said.

"While some companies like DeepSeek, have found innovative methods to enhance or utilize more fundamental hardware efficiently, obtaining cutting-edge chips still makes a big difference for training huge 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 considered delicate by the state are censored on the web so it must come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disputes or tell you what took place in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests recommend Chinese chatbots are programmed to avoid 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 mathematics, coding, and reasoning issues instead!"

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

The vehicle attack outside a sports arena in the southern Chinese city was at first heavily censored on Chinese social networks - with authorities only disclosing the death toll a day later.

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