China's AI Chatbots: Competing with Global Giants

A photo illustration of the DeepSeek app displayed on a smartphone in front of a Chinese flag.

Before the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek made headlines earlier this year, China’s artificial intelligence scene was already alive with homegrown AI models that rival those created in the West.

Major Chinese tech firms like Tencent and Alibaba have been developing their own AI models, while also supporting startups to advance China’s AI capabilities in light of U.S. restrictions aimed at stifling the country’s technology development.

Since the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in 2022, Chinese tech companies have rolled out their own AI chatbots, as ChatGPT is not permitted in China. DeepSeek’s AI chatbot has climbed to be one of the most downloaded free apps in the country, competing with offerings from Tencent and ByteDance.

DeepSeek AI Chatbot

The DeepSeek AI chatbot was created by the startup DeepSeek, founded in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, who previously co-founded the quantitative hedge fund High-Flyer Capital Management. After showcasing its V3 AI models and R1 reasoning models, DeepSeek's chatbot gained popularity and topped download charts in Apple's App Store.

Due to a surge in users, the DeepSeek website experienced outages, leading to temporary registration limits after facing attempted malicious attacks. It is powered by V3, which DeepSeek claims rivals Meta’s Llama 3.1 and OpenAI's models.

DeepSeek distinguishes itself by explaining its reasoning process before answering user questions, although it avoids directly addressing politically sensitive topics like President Xi Jinping or Taiwan.

Tencent’s Yuanbao AI Chatbot

Tencent's Yuanbao AI chatbot utilizes the company's Hunyuan AI model alongside DeepSeek’s R1 reasoning model. Launched in May, Yuanbao recently surpassed DeepSeek as the most downloaded app among iPhone users in China, according to reports.

This AI chatbot can be accessed via Tencent's WeChat, which boasts more than one billion users, making it the largest social media platform in the country.

ByteDance's Doubao AI Chatbot

ByteDance’s Doubao chatbot surpassed competitors from Baidu and Alibaba, becoming the most popular AI app in January. Released in August, Doubao garnered around 60 million monthly active users as of November.

The Doubao model is multimodal, capable of processing text, images, and audio input, and is embedded within ByteDance’s ecosystem, which includes Douyin, China’s version of TikTok.

Moonshot’s Kimi AI Chatbot

Moonshot, known as one of China’s “Six Tigers” in AI, developed the Kimi AI chatbot, launched in 2023. This chatbot can handle queries up to two million Chinese characters.

Supported by major tech corporations like Alibaba, Kimi was noted to have around 13 million monthly active users by November.

MiniMax's Talkie AI Chatbot

Talkie, developed by the Shanghai-based MiniMax, allows users to chat with various characters, including fictional personas and celebrity figures. While available globally, Talkie was removed from the U.S. App Store in December due to “technical reasons.”

Zhipu’s ChatGLM AI Chatbot

Zhipu, another leader among China’s “Six Tigers,” created the ChatGLM AI chatbot, which ranks among the top five most popular AI chatbots in the country. As of November, ChatGLM counted almost 6.4 million monthly active users, primarily utilized for productivity tasks.

Backed by tech giants including Alibaba and Tencent, Zhipu was founded in 2019.

Baidu’s Ernie Bot

Developed by Baidu, Ernie Bot uses the company’s proprietary Ernie AI models. First released in March 2023, this chatbot is designed to engage in dialogue, create content, and produce various output modes.

The latest version, Ernie 4.0, was launched in November 2023, with Baidu announcing plans for Ernie 4.5 to be released and open-sourced by mid-2024.

iFlyTek Spark AI Chatbot

The iFlyTek Spark AI chatbot is developed by the partially state-owned company iFlyTek, which introduced its iFlytek Spark Big Model V4.0 in June. Spark primarily acts as an AI assistant and, as of November, it was the fifth most-used chatbot in China with nearly six million monthly active users.

AI, Chatbots, Technology, China, DeepSeek