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 game after DeepSeek's success.

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 lags CHINA'S AI BOOM?

Transforming the country into a tech superpower has long been President Xi Jinping's goal and China has its sights on ending up being the world leader in AI by 2030.

China views AI as being "strategically important" and its venture 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 investments in Chinese AI accelerated after ChatGPT took off in 2022 and revealed promises of real-world business applications, Chen informed CNA.

But it was DeepSeek's increase that really "encouraged" the concept that smaller gamers like start-up firms could have roles to play in AI research and advancements, he adds.

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The "focus on cost benefit" is a distinct feature of Chinese AI, Chen states, with lower training and inference costs - the costs of using a trained model to draw conclusions from brand-new information.

2025 could also see the introduction of more Chinese AI models dealing with innovative reasoning jobs.

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

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

Chinese AI business are moving quickly, experts state, developing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and affordable methods to use generative AI to jobs and develop advanced products beyond chatbots.

But on the other side, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia's sophisticated AI chips, remains an essential hurdle for Chinese designers, noted Dr Marina Zhang, an associate professor trademarketclassifieds.com at University of Technology Sydney's (UTS) Australia-China Relations Institute.

"US export controls (still) restrict the ability of Chinese tech business ... forcing lots of to rely on older or lower-performance options which can slow training and lower model abilities," she said.

"While some business like DeepSeek, have actually discovered creative methods to enhance or use more fundamental hardware efficiently, obtaining advanced chips still makes a big difference for training extremely 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, 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 took place in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Tests suggest Chinese chatbots are programmed to stay away from domestic politics.

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

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