Step 3.5 Flash: Fast Enough to Think. Reliable Enough to Act
Summary
Step 3.5 Flash is a 196B MoE LLM with 11B active parameters per token, optimized for fast, agentic reasoning and real-time tool use. It combines a 256K context window with a 3:1 Sliding Window Attention layout to deliver high throughput, supports local deployment on consumer/edge hardware, and demonstrates end-to-end automation scenarios like stock trading orchestration and edge-cloud workflows, backed by extensive benchmarks and RL improvements. The article also exposes architecture details, benchmarks, and practical deployment guidance.