Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) vs Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking: Specs & Benchmark Comparison
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is developed by NVIDIA, while Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking comes from Alibaba. Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking was released in September 2025, and Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) followed 11 months later in August 2026. The two are similar in size, at about 30 billion and 33 billion parameters respectively.
The two models share 2 published benchmarks. They split them evenly, 1 to 1. The widest gaps are on GPQA, where Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) scores 75.0% against 73.1%; MMLU-Pro, where Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking scores 82.1% against 82.0%. Averaged across everything we track, Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) sits at 45.3% and Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking at 74.6%.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is available through an API at $0.05 per million input tokens with a 262K-token context window. We do not track a hosted API for Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking, so pricing and context cannot be compared directly.
| Characteristic | Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) | Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking |
|---|---|---|
| Company | NVIDIA | Alibaba |
| Release Date | August 11, 2026 | September 21, 2025 |
| Parameters | 30B | 33B |
| Multimodal | No | Yes |
| Context (input) | 262K | — |
| Context (output) | 262K | — |
| Input Price / 1M | $0.05 | — |
| Output Price / 1M | $0.20 | — |
| Average Score | 45.3% | 74.6% |
| Benchmarks | ||
| GPQA | 75.0% | 73.1% |
| MMLU-Pro | 82.0% | 82.1% |
Visual Benchmark Comparison
Verdict
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) leads in 1 out of 2 comparison categories.
Both models show comparable average scores: Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) — 0.5, Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking — 0.7.
Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) is newer: released 8/11/2026 vs 9/21/2025.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better for coding — Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) or Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking?
Which model is cheaper — Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) or Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking?
Which has a larger context window — Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) or Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking?
The Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) and Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking comparison is updated for 2026. Data includes benchmark results, API pricing, context window size and other specifications. For more detailed information, visit the Nemotron 3.5 Lightning (30B A3B) or Qwen3 VL 32B Thinking page. See also the complete list of AI model comparisons.