Nemotron 3.5 Lightning Intelligence, Performance & Price Analysis
Model summary
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is among the least intelligent models, but well priced when comparing to other open weight models of similar size. It's also notably fast, however somewhat verbose. The model supports text input, outputs text, and has a 1M tokens context window.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores 6 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, placing it at the lower end among comparable models (median: 13). When evaluating the Intelligence Index, it generated 78M tokens, which is somewhat verbose in comparison to the median of 78M.
Pricing for Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is $0.06 per 1M input tokens (moderately priced, median: $0.12) and $0.20 per 1M output tokens (moderately priced, median: $0.30). On average, it costs $0.29 per task to evaluate Nemotron 3.5 Lightning on the Intelligence Index.
At 293 tokens per second, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is notably fast (88).
| Reasoning | Yes This page shows the reasoning version of this model. A non-reasoning variant may also exist. |
|---|---|
| Input modality | Supports: text |
| Output modality | Supports: text |
| Context window | 1M ~1500 A4 pages of size 12 Arial font |
| Total parameters | 31.6B |
| Active parameters | 3.6B Number of parameters active per token during inference |
| License | OpenMDW-1.1 |
| Model weights | Hugging Face |
Metrics are compared against models of the same class:
- Non-reasoning models → compared only with other non-reasoning models
- Reasoning models → compared across both reasoning and non-reasoning
- Open weights models → compared only with other open weights models of the same size class:
- Tiny: ≤4B parameters
- Small: 4B–40B parameters
- Medium: 40B–150B parameters
- Large: >150B parameters
- Proprietary models → compared across proprietary and open weights models of the same price range, using a blended 3:1 input/output price ratio:
- <$0.15 per 1M tokens
- $0.15–$1 per 1M tokens
- >$1 per 1M tokens
Intelligence
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index
Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index by Open Weights / Proprietary
Intelligence Index vs. Cost per Task
Measures the performance of models on specific capabilities and industries
Artificial Analysis Finance & Accounting Index
Evaluations
Agentic knowledge work, Elo
Knowledge
1 - hallucination rate
Agentic SaaS workflows
Agentic scientific research workflows in a terminal
Agentic software engineering in open-source repositories
Reasoning & knowledge
Professional document reasoning, All-pass
Agentic coding & terminal use
Physics reasoning
Quantitative analysis on spreadsheets & documents
Legal agentic work, Hallucination-Gated All-Pass Rate
Agentic business operations
Agentic real-world work tasks, Elo
Agentic interactive 3D experiences, Elo
Product and brand videos designed in code, Elo
Kubernetes incident root-cause analysis
Medical long context reasoning
Visual reasoning
Rich, varied, well-crafted language
Well-structured, scannable, answer-first
Truthful, acknowledges uncertainty, non-sycophantic
Use of filler and generic language
AA-Briefcase v1.1
AA-Briefcase Elo
AA-Omniscience v1.1
AA-Omniscience Net Score
Openness Index
Artificial Analysis Openness Index: Score
Intelligence Index Comparisons
Intelligence Index vs. Cost per Task
Token Use
Output Tokens per Intelligence Index Task
Cost
Cost per Intelligence Index Task
Cost to Run Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index
Pricing: Cache Hit, Input, and Output
Context Window
Context Window
Speed
Measured by Output Speed (tokens per second)
Output Speed
Time per Intelligence Index Task
Latency
Measured by Time (seconds) to First Token
Latency: Time To First Answer Token
End-to-End Response Time
Seconds to output 500 tokens, calculated based on time to first token, 'thinking' time for reasoning models, and output speed
End-to-End Response Time
Model Size (Open Weights Models Only)
Model Size: Total and Active Parameters
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning was released on August 11, 2026.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning was created by NVIDIA.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning scores 6 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, placing it at the lower end among other open weight models of similar size (median: 13).
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning generates output at 292.8 tokens per second (based on the median across providers serving the model), which is well above average compared to other open weight models of similar size (median: 88.2 t/s).
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has a time to first token (TTFT) of 0.56s (based on the median across providers serving the model), which is very competitive compared to other open weight models of similar size (median: 1.11s).
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.06 per 1M input tokens (better than average, median: $0.12) and $0.20 per 1M output tokens (better than average, median: $0.30), based on the median across providers serving the model.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.06 per 1M input tokens and $0.20 per 1M output tokens (based on the median across providers serving the model). For a blended rate (7:2:1 cache hit/input/output ratio), this is $0.06 per 1M tokens. Pricing may vary by provider. Compare provider pricing
When evaluated on the Intelligence Index, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning generated 78M output tokens, which is better than average compared to other open weight models of similar size (median: 78M).
Yes, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is a reasoning model. It uses extended thinking or chain-of-thought reasoning to work through complex problems before providing an answer.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning supports text input.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning supports text output.
No, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning does not support image input. It can only process text.
No, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is not multimodal. It only supports text input.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has a context window of 1.0M tokens. This determines how much text and conversation history the model can process in a single request.
Yes, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is open weights. The model weights are publicly available and can be downloaded for self-hosting.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has 31.6 billion parameters (3.6 billion active).
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is a Mixture of Experts (MoE) model with 31.6 billion total parameters, but only 3.6 billion active parameters are used during inference.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is released under the OpenMDW-1.1 license. This license allows commercial use. View license
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning achieves a score of 6 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index. This composite benchmark evaluates models across knowledge work, coding, science, and general knowledge.
Yes, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is available via API through 6 providers. Compare API providers
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is available through 6 API providers. Compare providers