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 lags CHINA'S AI BOOM?
Transforming the nation 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 "tactically important" and its venture into the field has actually 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 sped up after ChatGPT took off in 2022 and revealed pledges of real-world organization applications, Chen informed CNA.
But it was DeepSeek's increase that truly "urged" the concept that smaller players like start-up companies could have functions to play in AI research study and developments, he includes.
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The "focus on cost benefit" is a distinct feature of Chinese AI, Chen says, with lower training and reasoning expenses - the costs of using a trained design to draw conclusions from brand-new data.
2025 might likewise see the development of more Chinese AI models tackling sophisticated thinking jobs.
"We could see some AI firms concentrating on getting closer to synthetic basic intelligence (AGI) while others focus on concrete ways to commercialise their designs and integrate them with scientific research," Chen added.
AGI refers to a system with on par with human abilities.
Chinese AI business are moving quickly, experts state, developing on DeepSeek's momentum to come up with their own innovative and cost-efficient methods to use generative AI to jobs and develop more sophisticated items beyond chatbots.
But on the other hand, access to high-end hardware, especially Nvidia's sophisticated AI chips, remains a key hurdle 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) restrict the ability of Chinese tech companies ... forcing lots of to depend on older or lower-performance alternatives which can slow training and minimize design capabilities," she said.
"While some companies like DeepSeek, have actually discovered innovative methods to optimize or use more basic hardware efficiently, obtaining cutting-edge chips still makes a huge difference for training huge 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 sensitive by the state are censored on the web so it ought to come as not a surprise that Chinese-made chatbots will not acknowledge territorial disputes or tell you what occurred 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 mathematics, coding, and logic issues rather!"
To further test for precision and self-censorship, we asked DeepSeek-R1, Qwen2.5 and ChatGPT the very same concern: "What occurred in Zhuhai on November 11, 2024?"
The car attack outside a sports arena in the southern Chinese city was at first greatly censored on Chinese social networks - with authorities just divulging the death toll a day later.
DeepSeek failed to mention that an attack had taken place, highlighting instead a military air show and other occasions that had occurred in the city like songs' day shopping sales as well as sports and cultural activities.
Dr Zhang thinks that it may be a mix of factors at play, such as censorship in addition to "a few practical constraints".
"DeepSeek counts on a mix of older graphics processing systems and has restricted access to innovative hardware which can affect how rapidly and thoroughly the design can be trained or updated," she said, indicating existing US export curbs on China.
"Its strong concentrate on Chinese-language data may also restrict its adaptability (to perform) multilingual jobs ... As a fairly new product, DeepSeek likewise hasn't yet been checked as broadly or on the same scale as more established AI models which poses additional obstacles during real-world deployment."
When it pertained to Qwen2.5, Alibaba's chatbot surprisingly answered our concern about the Zhuhai car attack.
That was after numerous duplicated efforts - four triggers to be accurate - in a span of around 20 minutes.
It ultimately communicated details about the attack which killed 35 people and left lots of others injured, likewise going on to note details like the date and time, details about the assailant including his name and age, as well as casualties.
However, it composed that "the authorities are performing an extensive examination into the intentions and scenarios surrounding the incident", details which is now dated.
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How do Chinese aI Bots Stack up Against ChatGPT?
Alisha Broinowski edited this page 1 week ago