# MAI-Thinking-1 vs Spark-X2.6-4B

> Side-by-side benchmark comparison for MAI-Thinking-1 and Spark-X2.6-4B across agentic, coding, multimodal, knowledge, reasoning, multilingual, and math tasks.

- Canonical page: https://benchlm.ai/compare/mai-thinking-1-vs-spark-x2-6-4b
- Last updated: October 20, 2026

- Shared sourced benchmarks: 7
- 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 53.1 to 40.14. 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 78.2 for Spark-X2.6-4B.
- The biggest single benchmark swing is GPQA in Knowledge, with scores of 84.2% and 69.9%.
- Spark-X2.6-4B also has the larger context window at 1M.

## Model Snapshot

| Property | MAI-Thinking-1 | Spark-X2.6-4B |
|----------|----------|----------|
| Creator | Microsoft | SparkLLM |
| Type | Proprietary | Open Weight |
| Reasoning | Reasoning | Reasoning |
| Context | 256K | 1M |
| Overall Score | 53.1 | 40.14 |
| Benchmarks Covered | 13 | 20 |
| Pricing (input/output) | N/A | $0.00 / $0.00 |

## Category Breakdown

### Agentic

- Winner: Not comparable
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Spark-X2.6-4B public-lane score: 33 (Estimated · #89/131)

| Benchmark | MAI-Thinking-1 | Spark-X2.6-4B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 46% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| BFCL v4 | Coming soon | 71.8% | Coming soon |
| τ²-bench results | Coming soon | 86.9% | Coming soon |
| MCP Atlas | Coming soon | 62.4% | Coming soon |
| BrowseComp | Coming soon | 53.1% | Coming soon |
| HLE w/ tools | Coming soon | 36.9% | Coming soon |
| τ³-bench results | Coming soon | 34.7% | Coming soon |
| Claw-Eval | Coming soon | 69.9% | Coming soon |

### Coding

- Winner: Not comparable
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Spark-X2.6-4B public-lane score: 30.6 (Estimated · #95/152)

| Benchmark | MAI-Thinking-1 | Spark-X2.6-4B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| LiveCodeBench v6 | 87.7% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE-bench Verified | 73.5% | 62.8% | MAI-Thinking-1 |
| SWE-bench Pro | 52.8% | 54.3% | Spark-X2.6-4B |
| Terminal-Bench 2.0 | 46.0% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| SWE Multilingual | Coming soon | 64.7% | Coming soon |
| SciCode | Coming soon | 36.8% | Coming soon |

### Reasoning

- Winner: Not comparable
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: Coming soon
- Spark-X2.6-4B public-lane score: 48.8 (Unranked · 2 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | MAI-Thinking-1 | Spark-X2.6-4B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| Graphwalks BFS 128K | 90% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| LongBench v2 | Coming soon | 53.3% | Coming soon |

### Knowledge

- Winner: Directional only
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: 55.5 (Estimated · #59/187)
- Spark-X2.6-4B public-lane score: 43 (Estimated · #109/187)

| Benchmark | MAI-Thinking-1 | Spark-X2.6-4B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| GPQA | 84.2% | 69.9% | MAI-Thinking-1 |
| GPQA-D | 84.2% | 77.1% | MAI-Thinking-1 |
| MMLU-Pro | 85% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| HLE w/o tools | Coming soon | 17.9% | Coming soon |

### Instruction Following

- Winner: MAI-Thinking-1
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: 94.7 (#3/149)
- Spark-X2.6-4B public-lane score: 78.2 (#62/149)

| Benchmark | MAI-Thinking-1 | Spark-X2.6-4B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| IFBench | 85% | 75.8% | MAI-Thinking-1 |
| IFEval | Coming soon | 93.6% | Coming soon |

### Mathematics

- Winner: Not comparable
- MAI-Thinking-1 public-lane score: 81.1 (Unranked · 3 rankable rows)
- Spark-X2.6-4B public-lane score: 76.4 (Unranked · 3 rankable rows)

| Benchmark | MAI-Thinking-1 | Spark-X2.6-4B | Winner |
|-----------|-----------|-----------|--------|
| AIME 2025 | 97% | Coming soon | Coming soon |
| AIME26 | 94.5% | 91.2% | MAI-Thinking-1 |
| HMMT Feb 2026 | 84.9% | 81.3% | MAI-Thinking-1 |
| IMOAnswerBench | Coming soon | 75.2% | Coming soon |

## FAQ

### Which is better overall, MAI-Thinking-1 or Spark-X2.6-4B?

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 Spark-X2.6-4B?

The widest category gap is in instruction following, where the averages are 94.7 for MAI-Thinking-1 and 78.2 for Spark-X2.6-4B.

### 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 Spark-X2.6-4B cover on BenchLM?

Spark-X2.6-4B currently has 20 sourced benchmark scores on BenchLM.

## Related Comparisons

- [MAI-Thinking-1 vs Claude Opus 5.5](/compare/claude-opus-5-5-vs-mai-thinking-1)
- [Spark-X2.6-4B vs Claude Opus 5.5](/compare/claude-opus-5-5-vs-spark-x2-6-4b)
- [MAI-Thinking-1 vs GPT-6.1 Sol](/compare/gpt-6-1-sol-vs-mai-thinking-1)
- [Spark-X2.6-4B vs GPT-6.1 Sol](/compare/gpt-6-1-sol-vs-spark-x2-6-4b)

## Explore More

- [MAI-Thinking-1 profile](/models/mai-thinking-1)
- [Spark-X2.6-4B profile](/models/spark-x2-6-4b)
- [Compare Pricing](/llm-pricing)
- [Alternative Finder](/tools/alternative-finder)
- [LLM Selector](/tools/llm-selector)
- [Overall Rankings](/best/overall)