# The Fastest Nemotron Yet: Embracing NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning in Kilo > Source: > Published: 2026-08-11 16:19:34+00:00 # The Fastest Nemotron Yet: Embracing NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning in Kilo ### A customizable open model optimized for always-on agents Following up on our previous deep dives into NVIDIA’s powerful AI ecosystem and [NVIDIA Nemotron](https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/ai-data-science/foundation-models/nemotron/) open models, we are thrilled to share our latest hands-on experiences with their newest release: ** NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning**. NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is a customizable open model that gives control over always-on agents and the latest agentic technology. Internally, we’ve been test-driving Nemotron 3.5 Lightning to see how it handles our day-to-day agentic workflows at Kilo. What we found is a remarkably fast, capable model that is perfect for agentic work—and we have insights to share on how to get the most out of it. **Under the Hood: Speed and Architecture** NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is a 30B Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) model that operates with 3B active parameters. It was distilled directly from NVIDIA’s frontier Nemotron 3 Ultra model, which has been in the top ten for every mode on the [Kilo Leaderboard](https://kilo.ai/leaderboard) since launch, competing directly with the latest MiniMax and DeepSeek models. Will Nemotron 3.5 Lightning have the same results in the real world usage? Based on our early testing, we’re guessing yes–and have tips from what we learned. Designed specifically for always-on agents, this architecture allows Nemotron 3.5 Lightning to support massive context windows of up to 1M tokens. Where Nemotron 3.5 Lightning truly shines is the ability to do research and take action without losing its incredible inference speed. It boasts *up to 4x higher throughput compared to some competing models*, enabling sub-agents to complete specialized tasks much faster. **Throughput Comparison (TPS/GPU)** **A “Big Personality” Built for Agentic Flows** When integrating Nemotron 3.5 Lightning into Kilo for day-to-day work, our Kilo engineers noticed something immediately: this model has a *big* personality. It is highly opinionated and surprisingly spirited. In one internal test, when asked to create a pull request, the model playfully responded with a Shakespearean dilemma: *“To create a PR, or not to create a PR, that’s the question.”* Because of this vibrant, opinionated nature, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning isn’t always the best candidate for unconstrained, high-level planning. Instead, it is a powerhouse when given **strict guidelines** combined with the **right kind of flexibility**. It can do research and act on it, but it needs to know where to start (and where you’re heading). This spirited disposition is precisely what makes it so effective within the [Agent Manager](https://kilo.ai/docs/automate/agent-manager) framework. Within this structured ecosystem, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning excels as a high-performance *executor*. When an Orchestrator agent breaks down complex projects into manageable sub-tasks, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning takes those specific, bounded instructions and pursues them with relentless efficiency. Its “personality” translates into a high degree of reliability for executing agent-managed workflows where the goals are clearly defined, ensuring that sub-tasks are completed without the drift often seen in more passive models. When you need to spin up multiple agents to handle high-volume, repetitive, or domain-specific tasks, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is incredibly effective. **Internal Benchmarks: Where Nemotron 3.5 Lightning Excels** Our Kilo engineers spent time putting both the “Instant” and “Thinking” variants of Nemotron 3.5 Lightning through the ringer with use in real production workloads. Here are the highlights of where the model succeeded: **Exceptional Speed:** Across the board, our engineers noted that the model is incredibly fast, making it ideal for rapid iteration and local agent workflows.**UI and Code Tweaks:** The model successfully navigated instructions to make correct, simple visual changes to front-end components like sign-in pages.**Concise Generation:** It proved highly effective at generating short, punchy PR descriptions, as well as excellent branch names and titles.**Deterministic Git Operations (Instant Variant):** The Instant variant handled low-risk, straightforward tasks beautifully, achieving a 100% success rate on tagging and strong results on undo/reset recovery, commit construction, and remote handling.**Advanced Reliability (Thinking Variant):** The Thinking variant achieved a nearly 73% exact completion rate on one of our engineers’ personal git benchmarks/evals. It scored perfectly (16/16) on critical deterministic operations, including repository inspection, revert, stash, and undo recovery. Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is very close to Qwen 3.6 on [PinchBench](https://pinchbench.com/) and we see many similarities. Not least of all, it’s a highly opinionated model, especially for such a tiny powerhouse. But when you give it the right tasks with the right guidelines, it can really exceed expectations. By playing to its strengths—leveraging its blazing-fast token generation for well-defined, specialized workflows—Nemotron 3.5 Lightning is shaping up to be an excellent tool for multi-agent setups. Keep your instructions strict, embrace its quirky flexibility, and let it speed up your day-to-day operations. Try Nemotron 3.5 Lightning everywhere you use [Kilo Code](https://kilo.ai/), from the CLI to the VS Code extension. We can’t wait to see what you think!