NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning and NeMo Switchyard Deliver Faster, Smarter, More Efficient Agentic AI

As the artificial intelligence landscape undergoes a fundamental transformation—pivoting from simple, reactive chatbots toward sophisticated, autonomous agentic systems—the demand for open-source models that offer granular control and deployment flexibility has reached a fever pitch. NVIDIA is addressing this shift head-on with the launch of Nemotron 3.5 Lightning, the most efficient model in its class, specifically engineered for high-volume, long-running agentic workloads.

This latest addition to the Nemotron 3 family follows the successful release of Nemotron 3 Nano, underscoring NVIDIA’s ongoing commitment to refining open-model architectures for superior speed and precision. Alongside this model, the company is introducing NeMo Switchyard, an open-source library designed to bring intelligent, automated routing to the agentic ecosystem. Together, these innovations empower enterprises to optimize their AI infrastructure across the entire spectrum, from local workstations and edge devices to massive data centers and cloud environments.

The Rise of Always-On Agentic Systems

Modern AI architecture is increasingly moving toward a "system of models" approach. Rather than relying on a single, monolithic model to handle every request, developers are building ensembles where specialized models collaborate to solve complex problems. In this framework, a high-level reasoning engine—such as Nemotron 3 Ultra or other frontier models—acts as the orchestrator, planning workflows and delegating specific, repetitive tasks to smaller, highly efficient models.

Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is purpose-built for these specialized roles. As a 30-billion-parameter mixture-of-experts model, it excels at high-volume, targeted tasks including:

• Automated code reviews
• Real-time security alert monitoring
• Tool-based interactions
• Complex billing and customer support inquiries

"Nemotron 3.5 Lightning delivers frontier-level intelligence in a small, customizable open model built for high-volume agentic workflows, giving organizations the power to optimize their AI deployments from the edge to the cloud."

Powering High-Volume Tasks with Lightning

Developed with the collaborative input of the Nemotron Coalition, which provided critical datasets, inference software, and evaluation methodologies, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is designed for maximum throughput. The model achieves up to 4x faster output speeds, resulting in a 30% reduction in task completion time compared to its peers.

Because the model is fully open and customizable, organizations can leverage NVIDIA NeMo to post-train the model on proprietary domain data, tools, and workflows. This level of customization ensures that the model is not just fast, but highly accurate for specific enterprise needs. Early adopters are already seeing significant results:

• CrowdStrike is utilizing the model to bolster cybersecurity operations.
• Harvey, in collaboration with Trajectory, is applying it to legal services.
• CodeRabbit and Baseten are integrating it to streamline code review processes.
• Lila Sciences is leveraging the model to advance reasoning in life and physical sciences.
• Fastino Labs has reported leading accuracy benchmarks across software development, finance, and healthcare.

Furthermore, NVIDIA is releasing the Nemotron-RL-Agentic-Terminal-Pivot, a specialized reinforcement learning dataset that allows developers to post-train the model specifically for advanced coding agent capabilities.

Intelligent Routing with NeMo Switchyard

One of the primary challenges in managing a "system of models" is the trade-off between cost, latency, and quality. If an enterprise relies on a single, massive frontier model for every task, they risk overspending and unnecessary latency. Conversely, manual routing is an integration nightmare that slows down deployment.

NeMo Switchyard solves this by providing an open-source routing library that automatically directs prompts to the most suitable model for each specific step in an agent’s workflow. Developers can tune the router using various algorithms to prioritize their specific requirements, whether that be cost-efficiency, response time, or output quality.

Key Performance Benefits

Internal testing reveals that NeMo Switchyard maintains frontier-level accuracy while slashing task completion costs to roughly one-third of what would be required using a single, large-scale model like Opus 4.8.

The industry response has been swift, with major players integrating Switchyard to optimize their stacks:

• Boomi: Achieved 100% domain-routing accuracy, with 59% of traffic routed to a 5x faster fine-tuned model, reducing latency by 21%.
• Cognition: Integrated the library into their Devin Desktop environment, achieving near-frontier performance while reducing costs by 28%.
• LangChain: Successfully reduced costs by 74% across 145 multi-turn agent tasks by routing only 7% of calls to a frontier model.
• Ramp: Matched frontier-model performance while cutting runtime by 33% and costs by 58% in SWE-Bench testing.
• LiteLLM: Is incorporating Switchyard as a plug-in, allowing developers to benefit from intelligent routing without modifying their existing infrastructure.

Deployment Flexibility and Privacy

A core advantage of the Nemotron 3.5 Lightning release is the control it grants organizations over data privacy and infrastructure. The model is designed to run locally on NVIDIA RTX PCs, DGX Spark, DGX Stations, and Jetson edge devices. This allows enterprises to maximize their existing hardware investments while keeping sensitive data on-premises.

For those requiring scale, the model is fully compatible with NVIDIA RTX PRO workstations, data centers, and cloud environments. By publishing training data and techniques to the extent permitted by licensing, NVIDIA continues to prioritize transparency, enabling better auditing and traceability for enterprise users.

Availability

NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is available today on Hugging Face, ModelScope, OpenRouter, and as an NVIDIA NIM microservice via build.nvidia.com. It is also supported by a vast ecosystem of cloud partners and inference platforms. NeMo Switchyard is currently available on GitHub, with integration into partner platforms expected in the near future.

As the industry moves toward a future defined by autonomous agents, these tools provide the necessary foundation for building AI systems that are not only smarter but significantly more efficient and easier to manage at scale.