ZDNET’s key takeaways

Three new Nvidia open models strive for efficiency and speed.

Open models are having a renaissance on the heels of the Hugging Face hack.

US labs are catching up in the open model race.

China-based AI labs have had the upper hand on competitive open-weight AI models over the last few years, but a recent surge in Western-made open models is challenging that.

Also: Open weights vs. closed: An AI civil war’s afoot

Nvidia’s new model, the open-weight Nemotron 3.5 Super VL, aims to be the latest data point in that surge. The 120-billion-parameter model, available today, targets the industry’s increasing focus on agentic work by delivering “the fastest task completion and highest accuracy for specialized, always-on agents,” according to Nvidia.

“As the fastest open agentic model in its class — 5x faster than the next best — it helps enterprise agents complete high-volume tasks faster across workflows that span days or weeks,” Nvidia said in the release.…