I'm heading to China this June, and I was wondering if I can use ChatGPT while I'm there.
As of now, ChatGPT 4.0 (or any version of ChatGPT) is not directly accessible in China due to the country's strict internet regulations and the Great Firewall, which blocks many Western online services, including OpenAI’s products.
However, there are a few workarounds that people have used in other regions, like VPNs or other proxy services, to access OpenAI’s services, but they might not always be reliable or compliant with local laws.
That said, China has its own rapidly growing AI industry, with companies like Baidu and Tencent developing their own AI models similar to ChatGPT.
DeepSeek is an emerging Chinese AI startup that has recently made waves in the global tech community. It offers powerful AI models, such as DeepSeek R1 and V3, which are being compared to OpenAI's ChatGPT due to their impressive performance and significantly lower operational costs.