Model Comparison

Grok 4.5 vs Qwen2 72B InstructWhich is better in 2026?

Grok 4.5 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Verdict: Grok 4.5 vs Qwen2 72B Instruct — which is better?

Grok 4.5 (by xAI) and Qwen2 72B Instruct (by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team) are two of the AI models people compare most. Here is how they stack up on benchmarks, price and capabilities, and which one to pick in 2026.

Grok 4.5 outperforms in 1 benchmarks (GPQA), while Qwen2 72B Instruct is better at 0 benchmarks. Grok 4.5 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Choose Grok 4.5 if…

  • you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 1 of 1 shared benchmarks
  • you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jul 2026

Choose Qwen2 72B Instruct if…

  • you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune

Performance Benchmarks

Comparative analysis across standard metrics

1 benchmarks

Grok 4.5 outperforms in 1 benchmarks (GPQA), while Qwen2 72B Instruct is better at 0 benchmarks.

Grok 4.5 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks.

Sat Jul 18 2026 • llm-stats.com

Arena Performance

Human preference votes

Context Window

Maximum input and output token capacity

Only Grok 4.5 specifies input context (500,000 tokens).

xAI
Grok 4.5
Input500,000 tokens
Output- tokens
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen2 72B Instruct
Input- tokens
Output- tokens
Sat Jul 18 2026 • llm-stats.com

Input Capabilities

Supported data types and modalities

Grok 4.5 supports multimodal inputs, whereas Qwen2 72B Instruct does not.

Grok 4.5 can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.

Grok 4.5

Text
Images
Audio
Video

Qwen2 72B Instruct

Text
Images
Audio
Video

License

Usage and distribution terms

Grok 4.5 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Qwen2 72B Instruct uses tongyi-qianwen.

License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.

Grok 4.5

Proprietary

Closed source

Qwen2 72B Instruct

tongyi-qianwen

Open weights

Release Timeline

When each model was launched

Grok 4.5 was released on 2026-07-16, while Qwen2 72B Instruct was released on 2024-07-23.

Grok 4.5 is 24 months newer than Qwen2 72B Instruct.

Grok 4.5

Jul 16, 2026

2 days ago

2.0yr newer
Qwen2 72B Instruct

Jul 23, 2024

2.0 years ago

Knowledge Cutoff

When training data ends

Grok 4.5 has a documented knowledge cutoff of 2026-02-01, while Qwen2 72B Instruct's cutoff date is not specified.

We can confirm Grok 4.5's training data extends to 2026-02-01, but cannot make a direct comparison without Qwen2 72B Instruct's cutoff date.

Grok 4.5

Feb 2026

Qwen2 72B Instruct

—

Outputs Comparison

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Key Takeaways

xAI
Larger context window (500,000 tokens)
Supports multimodal inputs
Higher GPQA score (93.0% vs 42.4%)
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Qwen2 72B Instruct

View details

Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team

Has open weights

Detailed Comparison

Interactive Arena

Judge for yourself.

Run your own prompts against Grok 4.5 and Qwen2 72B Instruct side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.

Grok 4.5
✓ Preferred
Qwen2 72B Instruct
Open in Playground
AI Model Comparison Table
Feature
xAI
Grok 4.5
Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Qwen2 72B Instruct

FAQ

Common questions about Grok 4.5 vs Qwen2 72B Instruct.

Which is better, Grok 4.5 or Qwen2 72B Instruct?

Grok 4.5 significantly outperforms across most benchmarks. Grok 4.5 is made by xAI and Qwen2 72B Instruct is made by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team. The best choice depends on your use case — compare their benchmark scores, pricing, and capabilities above.

How does Grok 4.5 compare to Qwen2 72B Instruct in benchmarks?

Grok 4.5 scores GPQA: 93.0%, Terminal-Bench 2.1: 83.3%, Artificial Analysis Coding Agent Index v1.1: 76.0%, SWE-Bench Pro: 64.7%, AA-Omniscience Index: 63.0%. Qwen2 72B Instruct scores GSM8k: 91.1%, CMMLU: 90.1%, HellaSwag: 87.6%, HumanEval: 86.0%, Winogrande: 85.1%.

What are the context window sizes for Grok 4.5 and Qwen2 72B Instruct?

Grok 4.5 supports 500K tokens and Qwen2 72B Instruct supports an unknown number of tokens. A larger context window lets you process longer documents, conversations, or codebases in a single request.

What are the main differences between Grok 4.5 and Qwen2 72B Instruct?

Key differences include multimodal support (yes vs no), licensing (Proprietary vs tongyi-qianwen). See the full comparison above for benchmark-by-benchmark results.

Who makes Grok 4.5 and Qwen2 72B Instruct?

Grok 4.5 is developed by xAI and Qwen2 72B Instruct is developed by Alibaba Cloud / Qwen Team.

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