# MAI-Thinking-1 vs Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for MAI-Thinking-1 and Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/mai-thinking-1-vs-nemotron-3-5-super-vl-120b-a12b
- Last updated: October 15, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 5
- HTML indexing: indexable
- Ranking lane: BenchAlign v5.8

## Quick Verdict

MAI-Thinking-1 leads by point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence. Choose using the category evidence and your own workload tests.

## Summary

- MAI-Thinking-1 has the higher overall point estimate 53.33 to 49.51. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.
- The clearest category separation is in instruction following, where the averages are 94.7 for MAI-Thinking-1 and 66.6 for Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is IFBench in Instruction Following, with scores of 85% and 70.9%.
- Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B also has the larger context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | MAI-Thinking-1 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Microsoft | NVIDIA |
| Type | Proprietary | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 256K | 1M |
| Overall Score | 53.33 | 49.51 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 13 | 19 |
| Pricing (input/output) | N/A | Pricing unavailable / Pricing unavailable |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Not comparable
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B public-lane score: 44.2 (Estimated · #61/127)

| Benchmark | MAI-Thinking-1 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 46% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Terminal-Bench 2.1 | Coming soon | 66.7% | Coming soon |
| τ²-bench Airline | Coming soon | 76.5% | Coming soon |
| τ³-bench results | Coming soon | 18.9% | Coming soon |
| BrowseComp | Coming soon | 78% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Not comparable
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | MAI-Thinking-1 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 87.7% | 88.2% | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B |
| SWE-bench Verified | 73.5% | 71.1% | MAI-Thinking-1 |
| SWE-bench Pro | 52.8% | 51.8% | MAI-Thinking-1 |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 46.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE Multilingual | Coming soon | 67.7% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B public-lane score: 73 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | MAI-Thinking-1 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Graphwalks BFS 128K | 90% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| CritPt | Coming soon | 10.9% | Coming soon |

### Multimodal & Grounded

- Winner: Not comparable
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B public-lane score: 62 (Unranked · 5 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | MAI-Thinking-1 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| BabyVision | Coming soon | 29.6% | Coming soon |
| MMLongBench-Doc | Coming soon | 62.8% | Coming soon |
| V* | Coming soon | 85.6% | Coming soon |
| MathVision | Coming soon | 78.2% | Coming soon |
| CharXiv | Coming soon | 80.8% | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Directional only
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: 55.6 (Estimated · #56/184)
- Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B public-lane score: 51.8 (Estimated · #73/184)

| Benchmark | MAI-Thinking-1 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 84.2% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| GPQA-D | 84.2% | 89.5% | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B |
| MMLU-Pro | 85% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | Coming soon | 31.8% | Coming soon |
| HLE | Coming soon | 29.2% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: MAI-Thinking-1
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: 94.7 (#3/146)
- Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B public-lane score: 66.6 (#72/146)

| Benchmark | MAI-Thinking-1 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 85% | 70.9% | MAI-Thinking-1 |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: 81.1 (Unranked · 3 rankable rows)
- Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B public-lane score: Coming soon

| Benchmark | MAI-Thinking-1 | Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME 2025 | 97% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| AIME26 | 94.5% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HMMT Feb 2026 | 84.9% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| Apex Shortlist | Coming soon | 88.4% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, MAI-Thinking-1 or Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B?

MAI-Thinking-1 has the higher overall point estimate. Conditional score ranges do not establish rank confidence.

### Where is the biggest gap between MAI-Thinking-1 and Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B?

The widest category gap is in instruction following, where the averages are 94.7 for MAI-Thinking-1 and 66.6 for Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B.

### How many benchmarks does MAI-Thinking-1 cover on BenchLM?

MAI-Thinking-1 currently has 13 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

### How many benchmarks does Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B cover on BenchLM?

Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B currently has 19 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [MAI-Thinking-1 vs Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B NVFP4](/compare/mai-thinking-1-vs-nemotron-3-5-super-vl-120b-a12b-nvfp4)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B vs Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B NVFP4](/compare/nemotron-3-5-super-vl-120b-a12b-vs-nemotron-3-5-super-vl-120b-a12b-nvfp4)
- [MAI-Thinking-1 vs Claude Opus 5.5](/compare/claude-opus-5-5-vs-mai-thinking-1)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B vs Claude Opus 5.5](/compare/claude-opus-5-5-vs-nemotron-3-5-super-vl-120b-a12b)

## Explore More

- [MAI-Thinking-1 profile](/models/mai-thinking-1)
- [Nemotron 3.5 Super VL 120B A12B profile](/models/nemotron-3-5-super-vl-120b-a12b)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)