AA is the reason for Qwen3.8 27B shipped with xhigh

I know why Qwen3.8 27B shipped with xhigh reasoning as default, it's to do its best in benchmarks. Models from top labs often get benchmarked at multiple reasoning levels, but that same treatment doesn't apply to other labs. Open models are lucky to even be benchmarked at all. (See Laguna S 2.1)

So it makes total sense that Qwen team decided to ship with a default that show the model at its maximum capabilities, assuming Artificial Analysis would benchmark at the default.

And before anyone accuses Qwen team, I don't think it's benchmaxxing. That is an actual toggle that you can use if you have high bandwidth (or tolerence), and variable reasoning is pretty standard across the board. Totally reasonable to default to your best if you think you have one shot.