Nemotron 3.5 Lightning
By NVIDIA · released 2026-08-11 (2 months) · snapshot 2026-10-24
- Intelligence index
- 12.90
- Cost to run the AA index
- $92.8
- Price per 1M tokens (in / out)
- $0.06 / $0.20
- End-to-end time
- 9.16s
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning on the Pareto frontier, and what beats it?
Off the frontier
No. GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh) is at least as smart for the same money or less.
Next step up: Claude Haiku 5.5 (High), smarter but dearer.
| # | Model | Creator | Intelligence | Total cost | E2E total | Open | Released | Frontier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning | NVIDIA | 12.90 | $92.8 | 9.16s | 2026-08-11 | ||
| 2 | GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh) | OpenAI | 34.60 | $66.8 | 21.3s | 2026-09-22 | Frontier | |
| 3 | Claude Haiku 5.5 (High) | Anthropic | 37.80 | $94.1 | 26.0s | 2026-10-07 | Frontier |
Open in the picker Daily check URL: 200 on the frontier, 409 once beaten
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning today
Intelligence: Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index. Cost: total cost to run that benchmark, so reasoning tokens count. API id: nemotron-3-5-lightning.
Compare head to head
Suggested: what beats it, its effort levels, and frontier models near its price.
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Claude Haiku 5.5 (High)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs GPT-6 Luna (Medium)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs GPT-6 Luna (High)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Claude Haiku 5.5 (Medium)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs MiMo-V2.6-Flash
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs GPT-6 Luna (Max)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs Claude Haiku 5.5 (Xhigh)
- Nemotron 3.5 Lightning vs MiMo-V2.6-Pro
What the Nemotron 3.5 Lightning release did to the frontier on 2026-08-11
None of its 1 effort levels reached the frontier at launch.
Closest miss: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning, 2.6 points below GPT-5.6 Luna (Non-reasoning) at 4.0× the cost.
Should you use Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Should you use Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
Only when it fits your setup: GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh) is at least as smart for the same money or less, so Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is off the value frontier today.
What is better and cheaper than Nemotron 3.5 Lightning?
GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh) — at least as smart for the same money or less.
How much does Nemotron 3.5 Lightning cost?
$0.06/$0.20 in/out per 1M tokens, and $92.8 to run the full Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, the honest all-in number for reasoning models.
Is Nemotron 3.5 Lightning on the Pareto frontier?
No: GPT-6 Luna (Xhigh) beats it on intelligence, cost, or both.
Frontier membership by axis pair
Other axis pairs where Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is Pareto-optimal.
| Y axis | X axis | On the frontier |
|---|---|---|
| AA intelligence index | AA total cost to run (USD) | |
| AA intelligence index | End-to-end total seconds | |
| AA intelligence index | Output speed tokens/sec |
Accept: text/markdown or ?format=md returns this page as Markdown. JSON: /api/v1/models/nemotron-3-5-lightning · Markdown: /api/v1/models/nemotron-3-5-lightning?format=md · llms.txt · agent skill