NVIDIA has just released the first Nemotron 3.5 model: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning,…
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NVIDIA has just released the first Nemotron 3.5 model: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning, a highly efficient small open weights model with performance similar to gpt-oss-120b at around a quarter of the total parameters Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is the successor to @nvidia Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B, with 31.6B total and 3.6B active parameters. It retains the same hybrid Mamba-Transformer architecture and small size from Nemotron 3 Nano, but makes substantial gains in intelligence and agentic performance. Key takeaways: ➤ Major intelligence jump: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores 24 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, a +9 point improvement over Nemotron 3 Nano (15). This puts it in line with OpenAI's gpt-oss-120b (24) and only just behind Nemotron 3 Super (26), a model ~4x its size ➤ Optimized for efficiency: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning sits behind the most intelligent small models in its size class such as Qwen3.6 35B A3B (32) and Muse Glimmer (high, 35) - but it is built for a different point on the frontier. In pre-release testing of a DeepInfra endpoint serving the final NVFP4 weights, we measured median output speeds of nearly 670 tokens per second, much faster than those models are…
- transformer — The neural network architecture behind modern AI models, built on attention — letting every word directly consider every other word in parallel.
- eval — A repeatable test for AI quality — a set of tasks plus scoring — used the way software teams use test suites, because model output is too variable to judge by eyeballing.
- AI agent — An AI system that doesn't just answer once but works toward a goal in a loop — taking actions, reading the results, and deciding what to do next.
A 30B-class open model that lands near gpt-oss-120b on agentic at roughly a quarter the parameters changes the cost calculus for high-volume execution steps. The license is permissive enough to actually deploy.
“It retains the same hybrid Mamba-Transformer architecture and small size from Nemotron 3 Nano, but makes substantial gains in intelligence and agentic performance.”
ArtificialAnlys
“Major intelligence jump: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores 24 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, a +9 point improvement over Nemotron 3 Nano (15). This puts it in line with OpenAI's gpt-oss-120b (24) and only just behind Nemotron 3 Super (26), a model ~4x its size”
ArtificialAnlys
“In pre-release testing of a DeepInfra endpoint serving the final NVFP4 weights, we measured median output speeds of nearly 670 tokens per second, much faster than those models are served in the market today”
ArtificialAnlys
“Meaningful agentic gains: the largest improvements over Nemotron 3 Nano come on agentic evaluations in GDPval-AA v2 (+334 ELO, moving past gpt-oss-120b and Nemotron 3 Super) and Terminal-Bench v2.1 (24% vs 7%).”
ArtificialAnlys
“Near-lossless NVFP4 quantization: as with prior Nemotron releases, the model ships in NVFP4 alongside BF16 weights. We measured the NVFP4 variant at 24 on the Intelligence Index and saw minimal degradation compared to the higher-precision weights”
ArtificialAnlys
postNemotron 3.5 Lightning's agentic capabilities are a step change for the NemotronArtificialAnlys
blogNVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and NeMo Switchyard Deliver Faster, Smarter, More Efficient Agentic AIKari Briski
articleDeveloping Nemotron 3.5 Lightning NVFP4 with QAD Using NVIDIA Model OptimizerTanya Lenz
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