# Qwen2-72B vs Yi-Lightning

> Yi-Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.1 to 30.0 on the Noometry Index.

- Canonical page: https://noometry.com/compare/qwen2-72b-vs-yi-lightning
- Last updated: 2026-10-11
- Shared benchmarks: 17

## Summary

- They share 17 benchmarks with published results for both. Qwen2-72B scores higher in 1 category and Yi-Lightning in 7 categories; 8 gaps are clear of the uncertainty.
- The widest gap is in knowledge, where Yi-Lightning leads 35.4 to 21.2.
- Qwen2-72B has downloadable open weights; the other is API-only.

## Snapshot

| | Qwen2-72B | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| Provider | Alibaba (Qwen) | 01.AI |
| Noometry Index | 30.0 | 37.1 |
| Rank | 300 | 209 |
| Context | — | — |
| Input $/M | — | — |
| Output $/M | — | — |
| Weights | Open | Proprietary |

## Coding

- Qwen2-72B: 29.1 (#310)
- Yi-Lightning: 27.4 (#320)

| Benchmark | Qwen2-72B | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Coding | 1196 | 1312 |
| Aider Polyglot | — | 12.9% |
| WeirdML | 11.3% | — |
| BigCodeBench Instruct | 38.5% | — |
| BigCodeBench Complete | 54% | — |

## Agentic & Tool Use

- Qwen2-72B: 17.0 (#146)
- Yi-Lightning: —

| Benchmark | Qwen2-72B | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| TheAgentCompany | 1.1% | — |
| METR Time Horizons | 29.9% | — |

## Reasoning

- Qwen2-72B: 23.2 (#181)
- Yi-Lightning: 25.9 (#139)

| Benchmark | Qwen2-72B | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Hard Prompts | 1191 | 1302 |
| Epoch Capabilities Index | 125.28 | — |

## Math

- Qwen2-72B: 30.2 (#236)
- Yi-Lightning: 36.2 (#172)

| Benchmark | Qwen2-72B | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Math | 1235 | 1300 |
| MATH Level 5 | 39.1% | — |

## Knowledge

- Qwen2-72B: 21.2 (#275)
- Yi-Lightning: 35.4 (#185)

| Benchmark | Qwen2-72B | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Expert | 1171 | 1286 |
| GPQA Diamond | 40.8% | — |
| MMLU | 82.4% | — |

## Multilingual

- Qwen2-72B: 35.9 (#244)
- Yi-Lightning: 42.2 (#196)

| Benchmark | Qwen2-72B | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Non-English | 1176 | 1269 |
| LMArena Chinese | 1240 | 1320 |
| LMArena French | 1170 | 1305 |
| LMArena German | 1151 | 1267 |
| LMArena Japanese | 1111 | 1228 |
| LMArena Korean | 1083 | 1192 |
| LMArena Russian | 1169 | 1255 |
| LMArena Spanish | 1169 | 1315 |

## Instruction Following

- Qwen2-72B: 61.7 (#241)
- Yi-Lightning: 67.4 (#196)

| Benchmark | Qwen2-72B | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Instruction Following | 1181 | 1278 |

## Long Context

- Qwen2-72B: 36.1 (#235)
- Yi-Lightning: 39.4 (#181)

| Benchmark | Qwen2-72B | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Longer Query | 1192 | 1297 |

## Writing & Preference

- Qwen2-72B: 40.8 (#241)
- Yi-Lightning: 50.2 (#184)

| Benchmark | Qwen2-72B | Yi-Lightning |
|---|---|---|
| LMArena Text | 1203 | 1302 |
| LMArena Creative Writing | 1181 | 1280 |
| LMArena Multi-Turn | 1196 | 1311 |

## FAQ

### Is Qwen2-72B better than Yi-Lightning?

Yi-Lightning is the stronger model overall, scoring 37.1 to 30.0 on the Noometry Index.

### Is Qwen2-72B or Yi-Lightning better for coding?

Qwen2-72B scores higher on coding benchmarks: 29.1 versus 27.4 in the Noometry coding category.

### How many benchmarks do Qwen2-72B and Yi-Lightning share?

17 benchmarks have published results for both models. Qwen2-72B has 26 scored results on Noometry and Yi-Lightning has 18.