Model Comparison
MAI-Thinking-1 vs Qwen3.5-35B-A3BWhich is better in 2026?
Both models are evenly matched across the benchmarks.
Verdict: MAI-Thinking-1 vs Qwen3.5-35B-A3B — which is better?
MAI-Thinking-1 (by Microsoft) and Qwen3.5-35B-A3B (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.
MAI-Thinking-1 outperforms in 4 benchmarks (LiveCodeBench v6, LongBench v2, SWE-Bench Verified, Terminal-Bench 2.0), while Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is better at 4 benchmarks (IFBench, MedXpertQA, MMLU-Pro, Multi-Challenge). Both models are evenly matched across the benchmarks.
Choose MAI-Thinking-1 if…
- you want the most recent training data — it shipped Jun 2026
Choose Qwen3.5-35B-A3B if…
- you want the strongest raw capability — it leads on 5 of 9 shared benchmarks
- you need open weights you can self-host or fine-tune
Performance Benchmarks
Comparative analysis across standard metrics
MAI-Thinking-1 outperforms in 4 benchmarks (LiveCodeBench v6, LongBench v2, SWE-Bench Verified, Terminal-Bench 2.0), while Qwen3.5-35B-A3B is better at 4 benchmarks (IFBench, MedXpertQA, MMLU-Pro, Multi-Challenge).
Both models are evenly matched across the benchmarks.
Arena Performance
Human preference votes
Model Size
Parameter count comparison
MAI-Thinking-1 has 965.0B more parameters than Qwen3.5-35B-A3B, making it 2757.1% larger.
Context Window
Maximum input and output token capacity
Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B specifies input context (262,144 tokens). Only Qwen3.5-35B-A3B specifies output context (65,000 tokens).
Input Capabilities
Supported data types and modalities
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B supports multimodal inputs, whereas MAI-Thinking-1 does not.
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B can handle both text and other forms of data like images, making it suitable for multimodal applications.
MAI-Thinking-1
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
License
Usage and distribution terms
MAI-Thinking-1 is licensed under a proprietary license, while Qwen3.5-35B-A3B uses Apache 2.0.
License differences may affect how you can use these models in commercial or open-source projects.
Proprietary
Closed source
Apache 2.0
Open weights
Release Timeline
When each model was launched
MAI-Thinking-1 was released on 2026-06-02, while Qwen3.5-35B-A3B was released on 2026-02-24.
MAI-Thinking-1 is 3 months newer than Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.
Jun 2, 2026
1 months ago
3mo newerFeb 24, 2026
5 months ago
Knowledge Cutoff
When training data ends
Neither model specifies a knowledge cutoff date.
Unable to compare the recency of their training data.
Outputs Comparison
Key Takeaways
MAI-Thinking-1
View detailsMicrosoft
Qwen3.5-35B-A3B
View detailsAlibaba Cloud / Qwen Team
Detailed Comparison
Interactive Arena
Judge for yourself.
Run your own prompts against MAI-Thinking-1 and Qwen3.5-35B-A3B side-by-side, then vote on the output you prefer.
| Feature | | |
|---|
FAQ
Common questions about MAI-Thinking-1 vs Qwen3.5-35B-A3B.