NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
Analysis Summary
NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is a compact operational model with a 262K-token context and support for tool use and function calling. The listed pricing is low, which gives it a useful role in workflows requiring many short or moderately sized calls. Its text-only modality keeps the deployment scope focused.
Measured capability is limited across reasoning, coding, and agentic tasks, so it should not be assigned difficult software engineering, open-ended strategy, or autonomous client actions without extensive controls. It can still support routing, extraction, tagging, basic document handling, and other deterministic steps where low cost is more important than nuanced generation. Adopt it as a utility tier with fallbacks and validation, not as a primary content or agent model.
Assessed August 23, 2026
Editorial notes
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning offers low pricing, a 262K-token context, and tool and function-calling support. Its measured reasoning, coding, and agentic capabilities are limited, so it fits narrow, cost-sensitive automation rather than complex client work.
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DFO Verdict
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning offers low pricing, a 262K-token context, and tool and function-calling support. Its measured reasoning, coding, and agentic capabilities are limited, so it fits narrow, cost-sensitive automation rather than complex client work.
How NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning compares
NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning ranks #160 of 433 AI models we track for overall intelligence, #121 of 206 for coding, #112 of 188 for agentic tasks. Its 262K-token context window is larger than 72% of the models we list. At $0.08 per million input tokens it is cheaper than 71% of comparable models.
Dark bar = input · light bar = output, scaled to the priciest peer.
1M tokens ≈ 8 full-length novels or ~2,500 pages of business documents in a single request.
Strongest on value. The pulled-in technical corner is the trade-off, and if the shape matters more than the price, this is your model.
Compare shapes side-by-side →Pricing
| Token Type | Cost per 1M tokens | Cost per 1K tokens |
|---|---|---|
| Input | $0.08 | $0.000080 |
| Output | $0.20 | $0.000200 |
What would NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning cost your business?
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A website chatbot handling around 100 customer conversations a day, a few short messages each.
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These numbers get smaller with the right architecture.
We route routine calls to cheap models and save NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning for the hard ones. Most clients cut their estimate by 60-80%.
Talk to our teamAbout NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is an open mixture-of-experts model from NVIDIA, with 3B active parameters out of 30B total. It is suited for high-throughput agentic workloads and specialized tasks that..
Frequently asked questions about NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
How much does NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning cost?
NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning costs $0.08 per million input tokens and $0.20 per million output tokens.
What is the context window of NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning has a context window of 262,144 tokens (262K).
Is NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning good for coding?
On our coding benchmark index, NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning ranks #121 of 206 models, placing it in the broader range of the field for code generation and debugging.
What can NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning do?
NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning supports tool use and function calling.
Who created NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
NVIDIA: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is developed by NVIDIA and was released on August 11, 2026.