Model reference · open weights
NVIDIA-Nemotron-3.5-Bolt is an open-weight language model from NVIDIA. NVIDIA-Nemotron-3.5-Bolt-74B-A9B-BF16 (BF16) weighs 150 GB; the smallest configuration that runs it is B200 180 GB.
For self-hosting, compare this build's requirements below with the GPU you plan to rent.
Summary of the nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3.5-Bolt-E4B-BF16 model card, 2026-10-25. The estimate below is for another build of the family.
What it is
| Released by | NVIDIA |
|---|---|
| Released | 2026-10-05 |
| Parameters | 8.0B |
| VRAM | 150 GB for the weights |
What it runs on
How much memory each request adds isn't estimated yet for this architecture. The weights need at least the cards below, plus room for the context.
| Card | Weights alone |
|---|---|
| RTX 3060 12 GB … H200 141 GB 11 smaller cards | does not fit |
| B200 180 GB | tight |
| 8× H100 80 GB tensor parallel | does not fit |
| 8× A100 80 GB tensor parallel | does not fit |
| 8× H200 141 GB tensor parallel | does not fit |
Builds
| Build | Params | Precision | Weights | Smallest setup |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA-Nemotron-3.5-Bolt-E4B-BF16 ↗ | 8.0B | BF16 | 16.0 GB | 2× RTX 3060 12 GB |
| NVIDIA-Nemotron-3.5-Bolt-74B-A9B-BF16 (above) ↗ | 74.9B | BF16 | 150 GB | B200 180 GB |
| NVIDIA-Nemotron-3.5-Bolt-74B-A9B-GGUF ↗ packaged by unsloth 2 builds: GGUF 998 MB … IQ2_XXS 22.0 GB |
GGUF | 22.0 GB | RTX 4090 24 GB |
From the model card
NVIDIA-Nemotron-3.5-Bolt-E4B-BF16 is a small language model (SLM) further post-trained from Gemma-4-E4B-it by NVIDIA. This is the full-precision (BF16) release. Nemotron-3.5-Bolt-E4B carries forward Gemma’s strong conversational capabilities and further improves multi-turn tool use, instruction following, and input grounding for fast local voice/device assistants, interactive personas, and embedded/edge interfaces. Designed for low-memory, low-TTFT operation, the model allows agents to respond quickly while preserving headroom for applications or adjacent model pipelines.
For speculative decoding, use the companion DFlash drafter. For the Q4_K_M quantized version, see NVIDIA-Nemotron-3.5-Bolt-E4B-4GB.
This model is ready for commercial or non‑commercial use.
| Total Parameters | 8B (4B effective) |
| Architecture | Gemma-4-E4B |
| Precision | BF16 |
| Context Length | Input: up to 64K tokens; output: up to 64K tokens |
| Inputs / Outputs | Text / text |
| Deployment | vLLM; full-precision customization, post-training, and evaluation |
| Reasoning Mode | Chat-template controls (enable_thinking=True/False) and runtime thinking budget |
| Conversational Mode | Chat-template controls (conversational_mode=True/False) |
| Recommended Sampling | Temperature 1.0, top_p 0.95 in both thinking modes |
| Best For | Local voice and device assistants, interactive personas, and embedded interfaces |
| License | OpenMDW-1.1 |
Model Developer: NVIDIA Corporation
Model Dates: December 2025 - May 2026
Data Freshness:
NVIDIA Nemotron™ is a family of open models with open weights, training data, and recipes, delivering leading efficiency and accuracy for building specialized AI agents.
To get quickly started on a single H100 you can use the following command.
Run it with vLLM! (vLLM v0.31.0: vllm/vllm-openai:v0.31.0)
export MODEL=nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3.5-Bolt-E4B-BF16
vllm serve "$MODEL" \
--served-model-name "nemotron-bolt" \
--host 0.0.0.0 \
--port 8000 \
--dtype bfloat16 \
--tensor-parallel-size 1 \
--gpu-memory-utilization 0.85 \
--kv-cache-dtype auto \
--max-model-len 65536 \
--max-num-seqs 64 \
--max-num-batched-tokens 65536 \
--chat-template "$MODEL/chat_template.jinja" \
--enable-auto-tool-choice \
--tool-call-parser gemma4 \
--reasoning-parser gemma4 \
--limit-mm-per-prompt '{"image":0,"video":0,"audio":0}'
Use the same downloaded BF16 checkpoint with its companion DFlash drafter. Run one serving configuration at a time. This example uses a single concurrent sequence and seven speculative tokens; tune these settings for your workload.
export MODEL=nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3.5-Bolt-E4B-BF16
export DRAFTER_CKPT=nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3.5-Bolt-E4B-BF16-DFlash-NVFP4
vllm serve "$MODEL" \
--served-model-name "nemotron-bolt" \
--host 0.0.0.0 \
--port 8000 \
--dtype bfloat16 \
--tensor-parallel-size 1 \
--gpu-memory-utilization 0.85 \
--kv-cache-dtype auto \
--max-model-len 65536 \
--max-num-seqs 1 \
--max-num-batched-tokens 65536 \
--chat-template "$MODEL/chat_template.jinja" \
--enable-auto-tool-choice \
--tool-call-parser gemma4 \
--reasoning-parser gemma4 \
--limit-mm-per-prompt '{"image":0,"video":0,"audio":0}' \
--speculative-config "{
\"method\": \"dflash\",
\"model\": \"$DRAFTER_CKPT\",
\"num_speculative_tokens\": 7
}"
The same request works with either serving configuration.
curl -s "http://:8000/v1/chat/completions" \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{
"model": "nemotron-bolt",
"messages": [
{"role": "user", "content": "What is 17 multiplied by 23?"}
],
"temperature": 0.0,
"max_tokens": 512,
"skip_special_tokens": false,
"chat_template_kwargs": {
"enable_thinking": true
}
}'
For more details on how to deploy and use the model — see the Quick Start Guide below!
Governing Terms: Use of this model is governed by the OpenMDW License Agreement, version 1.1. This model has been post-trained on the Google Gemma 4 model, and use of the Google Gemma 4 model is governed by Apache License, Version 2.0
We evaluated our model on the following benchmarks:
| Benchmark | Nemotron-3.5Bolt-E4BBF16 | Gemma4E4B-itBF16 | Qwen3.54BBF16 | Nemotron-3Nano-4BBF16 | Nemotron-3.5Bolt-E4B-4GBQ4_K_M | Gemma4E4B-itQ4_K_M | Qwen3.54BQ4_K_M | Nemotron-3Nano-4BQ4_K_M |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MultiChallenge | 53.10 | 42.08 | 51.76 | 35.30 | 55.60 | 39.36 | 52.23 | 34.53 |
| RoleBench | 67.05 | 49.95 | 53.66 | 12.02 | 71.21 | 60.51 | 52.35 | 10.86 |
| RoleMRC | 80.63 | 74.62 | 65.81 | 47.00 | 79.12 | 75.24 | 62.61 | 45.84 |
| EQ-Bench v3 | 39.40 | 41.17 | 32.92 | 19.31 | 38.15 | 39.77 | 32.07 | 19.45 |
| Brevity Benchmark | 82.52 | 79.99 | 75.35 | 73.60 | 82.84 | 78.49 | 75.17 | 70.98 |
| BFCL-v3 | 68.51 | 66.39 | 70.95 | 61.10 | 67.31 |
Quoted from the model card on Hugging Face. The full card is behind the Hugging Face link above.