id: Qwen__Qwen3-72B__strategic
status: approved
name: Qwen3-72B
org: Qwen
source:
  kind: huggingface
  url: https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3-72B
  revision: main
  model_card_url: https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3-72B
  project_url: https://qwenlm.github.io/
license:
  spdx: Apache-2.0
  url: https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3-72B
  allows_offline_retention: true
  allows_local_ops: true
  allows_fine_tune: true
  notes: "Confirm card; use Instruct/Coder sibling if that is the capability peak for the line."
profile:
  summary: "Strategic large Qwen dense — multilingual/tool open 70B-class reserve."
  original_source: https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3-72B
  use_cases:
    - "Future multi-GPU dense instruct without MoE serving complexity"
    - "Strong multilingual (DE/EN) offline assistant at 70B scale"
    - "Domain FT base when 8B/14B capacity is too small"
    - "Dense alternative to MoE giants for portable lab stacks"
  sweet_spots:
    - "S4 dense open with Qwen tooling continuity from the R 8B default"
    - "Easier multi-GPU dense serve story than 600B MoE"
    - "Apache-friendly licensing typical of Qwen3 line"
  not_ideal_for:
    - "Current default single-GPU ops"
    - "Collecting both this and Llama-70B-class first under tight quota"
    - "Embedding / retrieval"
  capability_notes: >
    Large dense strategic pick. Prefer Instruct/Coder sibling if that is the line
    peak at pin time. If soft quota is tight after S1, pick at most one of
    Qwen-72B vs Llama-70B-class first.
swot:
  strengths:
    - "High multilingual dense quality in open 70B class"
    - "Same family as R-tier Qwen3-8B — transfer of prompts/tools"
    - "Usually simpler ops than giant MoE"
  weaknesses:
    - "~40–150 GiB depending on quant; still heavy"
    - "May lag top MoE on some frontier-open benches"
  opportunities:
    - "First dense strategic fill after R + optional S1 compressed"
    - "FT / LoRA at 70B when facility upgrades"
  threats:
    - "Llama 70B / next Qwen large may be better use of same bytes"
    - "Supersession by Qwen next large release"
size:
  total_bytes: 0
  total_human: "~145 GB fp16 / ~40 GB Q4 (estimate)"
hardware_class:
  min_vram_gb_q4: 40
  min_vram_gb_fp16: 145
  notes: "T3+ to run; strategic dense multilingual open."
axes: [A, B, C]
priority: high
collection:
  approved_by: "bernd"
  approved_at: "2026-07-28"
  downloaded_at: null
  downloaded_by: ""
  storage_path: ""
  brief_refs:
    - research/2026-07-24-nas-strategic-collection-plan.md
    - docs/decisions/2026-07-24-nas-strategic-reserve.md
reason: "S4 strategic — large Qwen dense open for multilingual/tool capability reserve."
tags: [tier-s, strategic, dense, qwen3]
companions:
  - Qwen__Qwen3-8B__candidate
notes: "Pick at most one of Llama-70B-class vs Qwen-72B-class first if quota tight after S1 MoE."
history:
  - at: "2026-07-24"
    event: nominated
    by: operator-policy
    detail: "Strategic dense open for NAS."
  - at: "2026-07-28"
    event: profile_swot_added
    by: grok
    detail: "schema 0.2 profile + SWOT."
  - at: "2026-07-28"
    event: approved
    by: bernd
    detail: "S4 dense Qwen — deferred after R fill; pick vs Llama-70B"
  - at: "2026-07-28"
    event: collection_deferred
    by: grok
    detail: "S4 dense Qwen — deferred after R fill; pick vs Llama-70B"