AX-Ornith-1.0-35B-MLX-AXQ-4bit — 4.88 BPW measured main

An AXQuant (AXQ) mixed-precision MLX checkpoint for Apple Silicon, converted directly from the BF16 source model. The language path is quantized while the vision tower are preserved at BF16 in the checkpoint (or a bound sidecar when present).

Checkpoint Tier 1 certified on df-macstudio-m2 (2026-08-15) for this exact revision — measured size against a matched uniform baseline, quality retention, and conversion integrity. Tier 1 is a checkpoint claim, not a speed claim: MTP acceleration is not certified; no MTP speedup claim for this checkpoint. See the checkpoint Tier 1 certificate for the bound evidence and thresholds.

Model details

Property	Value
Base model	deepreinforce-ai/Ornith-1.0-35B
Source revision	5df2ed3f675c7beaa490328cc70bb573b65fb660
Product family	qwen3.5-moe
Source architecture	Qwen3_5MoeForConditionalGeneration (mixture of experts (MoE)); text path optimized
Main-model parameters	35.11B logical parameters
Quantizer	AXQuant 1.6.2
Hub budget class	4bit
AXQuant base precision class	4bit
Planned storage-adjusted BPW	4.8800
Measured main-model BPW	4.8801
Measured total BPW	4.8801
Safetensors weight size	21.42 GB
Approximate complete download	21.44 GB
Configured maximum context	262,144 tokens; practical limits depend on unified memory
Primary MLX runtime	MLX-LM
AX Engine native execution	Not established; no validated native manifest is included
MTP present	False
Vision present	True
Audio present	False

This repository contains MLX Safetensors. It does not contain PyTorch or GGUF weights.

Choosing an AXQ pack

AXQ names describe a storage-budget product class, not one uniform precision applied to every tensor. Protected tensors remain at higher precision, so the exact measured BPW is authoritative. In particular, a 6bit-named mixed plan may retain 4bit as its base precision while selecting 6-bit, 8-bit, or BF16 for other tensors to meet an approximately 6-BPW total budget. Protection floors can also raise a 4bit-named pack close to (or above) a 6bit budget on small or heavily protected models. When that collapse happens, AutomatosX does not publish a separate misleading 4bit sibling for that base.

Sibling	Intended trade-off
4bit sibling	Lower-storage AXQ budget; check its exact BPW
6bit sibling	Higher average precision near the 6-BPW budget

See the AutomatosX collections for the family catalog, or the complete index.

Download

python -m pip install -U huggingface_hub
hf download AutomatosX/AX-Ornith-1.0-35B-MLX-AXQ-4bit --local-dir ./AX-Ornith-1.0-35B-MLX-AXQ-4bit

Allow at least 21.44 GB of free disk space. Pin the resulting Hub commit in reproducible deployments rather than relying indefinitely on main.

Run with MLX-LM

python -m pip install -U mlx-lm
mlx_lm.generate \
  --model AutomatosX/AX-Ornith-1.0-35B-MLX-AXQ-4bit \
  --prompt "Explain mixed-precision quantization in three sentences." \
  --max-tokens 128 \
  --temp 0.0

MLX-LM compatibility covers standard text/backbone inference. It may ignore AXQuant runtime metadata and optional sidecars (vision.safetensors, mtp.safetensors); this command therefore does not establish MTP acceleration or vision-language quality. The artifact records MLX 0.32.0 and MLX-LM 0.31.3 from conversion.

AX Engine status

This package does not include a validated native model-manifest.json, so AX Engine execution is not established by this release. The AX Engine fields in axquant_runtime.json describe the intended compatibility contract, not observed runtime evidence. Use the architecture-specific MLX runtime path above. The artifact records AX Engine version not recorded, but version discovery alone is not a runtime check.

Quantization layout

Main-weight precision	Parameters	Share
4bit	33.62B	95.77%
8bit	529.61M	1.51%
bf16	956.29M	2.72%

• Quantization methods: affine, bf16.
• Group sizes used by quantized assignments: 32, 64.
• MTP sidecar: not included.
• Vision sidecar: 333 tensors, 446.57M parameters, 0.89 GB, BF16.
• Vision weights: protected BF16 sidecar.
• Optimization scope: text-path.
• Support tier: convertible.

BF16 sidecars, when present, are included in total download size. Their presence does not by itself establish MTP acceleration or vision-language quality.

Evidence and validation status

Check	Status
Planning evidence	architecture_prior
Calibration	none; the allocation is based on architecture priors
Quantizer execution	471/471 recorded module conversions succeeded; 0 fallbacks
AX Engine native manifest	not included
Quality versus BF16 or uniform baselines	Not published; no quality-retention claim
MTP acceptance and speed	not certified; no MTP speedup claim for this checkpoint (Ornith-1.0-35B has no MTP weights; certification is non-MTP direct-decode checkpoint Tier 1 only.)
AX Engine kernel evidence	unmeasured
Vision-language quality	Present, not certified; text Tier 1 does not imply VLM quality
Speech-recognition quality	Not applicable (audio disabled for this pack)
Long-context quality	262,144-token capacity is config metadata, not a validated claim
Release certification	Checkpoint Tier 1 certified on df-macstudio-m2 (2026-08-15), Hub commit d7416c665cd8; the formal AXQuant M0-M8 release campaign is a separate process and is not implied

Modalities (capability-gated)

Text checkpoint Tier 1 does not imply vision or audio quality. Vision present=true on a pack is not a quality pass.

Modality	Claim	Supported	Reason
Vision	present-not-certified	true	vision sidecar present; mlx-vlm smoke not a quality pass (prefixes=['model.visual'])
Audio	not-applicable	false	audio not supported on this pack

Intended use and limitations

• Intended for local development and evaluation on Apple Silicon with MLX-compatible runtimes.

• No minimum unified-memory figure is claimed; loadability depends on model size, context length, KV-cache policy, runtime buffers, and other processes using unified memory.

• Architecture-prior allocation is not measured sensitivity. It must not be presented as measured model quality.

• Vision weights are preserved at BF16, but this release does not claim validated VLM quality.

• The configured context window can require substantially more memory as the KV cache grows.

• AX Engine execution is not established because this package has no validated native manifest.

• Upstream capabilities, limitations, biases, and responsible-use guidance still apply.

Provenance and audit files

• axquant_manifest.json: package identity, byte accounting, runtime contract, software versions, and file checksums.
• axquant_plan.json: per-tensor precision decisions and planning evidence.
• axquant_quantizer_execution.json: conversion coverage and fallback records.
• axquant_runtime.json: declared AX Engine and MLX compatibility metadata; runtime checks remain separate evidence.
• axquant_vision_sidecar_manifest.json: protected vision tensor provenance.

All published provenance uses repository-relative paths. Local source paths are stripped before publication. The checkpoint was converted from BF16 rather than re-quantized from an OptiQ artifact. If an OptiQ repository is published separately, it uses a different quantizer and should not be assumed to have identical BPW or quality.

License

The checkpoint follows the upstream model license where applicable (often Apache License 2.0). See the deepreinforce-ai/Ornith-1.0-35B model card for license terms, model limitations, and responsible-use guidance.