Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning by NVIDIA is the fastest 30B MoE model for always-on agents, with hybrid Mamba-2 architecture, configurable reasoning, and 1M context.
Model Overview
Capabilities, design details, and architectural traits
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning - Fastest MoE for Always-On Agents
NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is positioned as the fastest MoE model for completing specialized tasks for always-on agents. It supports context up to 1M tokens.
The model is built for customization. NVIDIA describes the BF16 reference weights as a starting point for post-training (SFT, RL, distillation), domain adaptation, and producing quantized variants. An NVFP4 release is provided separately for latency- and throughput-optimized inference.
| Trait | Detail |
|---|---|
| Architecture | Hybrid Mamba-2 + MoE + Attention layers (interleaved Mamba-2 and MoE with select Attention) |
| Reasoning Mode | Configurable on/off via chat template (enable_thinking=True/False) |
| Context Length | Up to 1M tokens |
| License | OpenMDW-1.1, ready for commercial use |
Designed for Post-Training and Domain Adaptation
NVIDIA frames the BF16 release as reference weights for customization rather than optimized inference. The model is easily post-trained to achieve leading domain-specific accuracy and efficiency.
Benchmark Performance
Independent evaluations · Artificial Analysis
Accuracy & Capability Details
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| Model Details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| General Info | |||
| Provider | NVIDIA | Anthropic | Anthropic |
| Release Date | August 11, 2026 | September 22, 2026 | September 28, 2026 |
| Knowledge Cutoff | Sep 2025 | - | Jun 2026 |
| Context & Limits | |||
| Context Window | 1M | 1M | 1M |
| Pricing (per 1M tokens) | |||
| Input Pricing | $0.06 Best Input Pricing | $4 | $2 |
| Output Pricing | $0.20 Best Output Pricing | $20 | $10 |
| Modalities | |||
| Inputs | text | textimagefile | textimagefile |
| Outputs | text | text | text |
| Benchmarks (0-100) | |||
| Intelligence Index | 12.9 | 57.6 Best Intelligence Index | 56.0 |
| Coding Index | 26.8 | - | - |
| Agentic Index | 3.5 | - | - |
Humanity's Last Exam
Extremely difficult logical reasoning and knowledge.
Long Context Reasoning
Logical reasoning over long context windows.
SciCode Benchmark
Scientific coding and mathematical modeling.
Independent evaluation data provided by Artificial Analysis. To view the latest benchmarks and full details, visit their official site.
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