Nox Orion 2 (Flagship)

Flagship model · Released in Nox: September 23, 2026 · Page last updated: September 29, 2026

The upgrade to 1.4 Orion — faster, more accurate, lower cost

Orion 2 is the direct upgrade to 1.4 Orion and the flagship of the Nox 2 generation. It keeps everything 1.4 Orion could do — the same tools, thinking levels, and answer standard — while responding faster overall, answering more accurately, and costing less. Under the hood it is an 824-billion-parameter mixture-of-experts model, 46 billion active per token, with a roughly one-million-token context window. It reasons through a deliberate internal pass before answering and sizes each answer to the question, up to 9,000 characters.

Architecture: mixture-of-experts, 824 billion parameters total, 46 billion active per token — the 700-billion-parameter backbone of 1.3 Astra extended with roughly 100 billion parameters of additional trainable components.

Length: earlier Nox models answered under a fixed 4,000-character cap. Lifting that cap alone raised HealthBench Hard by 8.4 ± 2.0 points on a 150-example paired test, almost entirely on completeness. Orion scales length to the question instead — short for simple questions, up to 9,000 characters for multi-part ones — and covers the direct answer, main alternatives, next steps, and what would warrant urgent care.

Measured on the 1.4 Orion pipeline in September 2026: HealthBench Hard, Nox self-run, official open protocol, all 1,000 examples, scored 46.4% (±0.8) at Ultra and 53.3% (±1.0) at Hyper Ultra. Orion 2 runs the same engine and answer pipeline, so these remain the most recent published results; they have not been re-measured under the Orion 2 name. 1.3 Astra on the identical protocol: 34.8%.

Hyper Ultra is Orion’s sixth and deepest thinking level, in Plan mode on MAX. Same model, several passes over one question — draft, self-written rubric, self-grade, revision — about five to six minutes per answer. The 1.4 Orion pipeline scored Light 36.2%, Balanced 36.8%, Extra 36.9%, and Max 38.5% on a fixed 150-prompt development subset.

Multimodal and tool-using: up to ten photos per message; live web access in Plan mode with up to ten search-and-read rounds per answer, every source cited; inline health and anatomy image generation; thinking time shown on every answer and a live step timeline in Plan mode. In NOX WORK it also reads attached documents (PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, CSV, text, code — three files of 15 MB each), removes backgrounds from and upscales images, and reads connected apps.

Runs behind Leo, Nox’s deterministic safety layer, on every message; web, image, and app actions are withheld on any turn Leo flags as a possible emergency.

Available in Plan mode on Pro and MAX (Hyper Ultra on MAX) and as a selectable model in NOX WORK. Not an everyday-chat model.

Capabilities

• 824-billion-parameter mixture-of-experts model, 46 billion active per token
• ~1,000,000-token context window
• Deliberate internal reasoning pass before every answer, thinking time shown
• Six thinking levels, Light to Hyper Ultra — Hyper Ultra (Plan mode, MAX): draft, self-written rubric, self-grade, revision
• Dynamic answer length, up to a 9,000-character cap
• Photo input — up to ten images per message
• Live web access in Plan mode — up to ten search-and-read rounds per answer, every source cited
• Image generation — health and anatomy illustrations inline
• Plan mode progress timeline
• In NOX WORK: document reading, image background removal and upscaling, connected-app reads

Model details

• Architecture — Mixture-of-experts — 824 billion parameters total, 46 billion active per token; the 700-billion-parameter 1.3 Astra backbone extended with roughly 100 billion parameters of additional trainable components.
• Context window — ~1,000,000 tokens
• Answer length — Dynamic — sized to the question, up to a 9,000-character hard cap
• Reasoning — Deliberate internal reasoning pass before every answer, with thinking time shown
• HealthBench Hard — Measured on the 1.4 Orion pipeline: 46.4% (±0.8) at Ultra, September 5, 2026; 53.3% (±1.0) at Hyper Ultra, September 11, 2026 — Nox's own self-runs, official open protocol, all 1,000 examples; not independently verified.
• Thinking levels — Six — Light, Balanced, Extra, Max, Ultra, Hyper Ultra (Hyper Ultra in Plan mode on MAX, ~5–6 minutes per answer)
• Raw evidence — Every answer, every grader verdict, aggregate files and SHA-256 checksums are published: Ultra at https://www.getnox.ai/data/healthbench/orion/README.md, Hyper Ultra at https://www.getnox.ai/data/healthbench/orion-hyper-ultra/README.md
• Photo understanding — Yes — up to ten images per message, read automatically
• Live web access — Yes — in Plan mode, up to ten search-and-read rounds per answer, every source cited
• Image generation — Yes — health and anatomy illustrations rendered inline on request
• Safety layer — Runs behind Leo, Nox's deterministic red-flag detector, on every message
• Available on — Plan mode on Pro and MAX; selectable in NOX WORK

Availability: Available in Plan mode on Pro and MAX.

Nox Orion 2 is the named replacement for Nox 1.4 Orion (retired on September 23, 2026), Nox 1.3 Nova (retired on September 23, 2026), Nox Agent 1.2 (retired on September 23, 2026).

Nox Orion 2 — frequently asked questions

What is Nox Orion 2?

Nox Orion 2 is Nox's flagship model. Orion 2 is the direct upgrade to 1.4 Orion and the flagship of the Nox 2 generation. It keeps everything 1.4 Orion could do — the same tools, thinking levels, and answer standard — while responding faster overall, answering more accurately, and costing less. Under the hood it is an 824-billion-parameter mixture-of-experts model, 46 billion active per token, with a roughly one-million-token context window. It reasons through a deliberate internal pass before answering and sizes each answer to the question, up to 9,000 characters.

What can Nox Orion 2 do?

Nox Orion 2's capabilities: 824-billion-parameter mixture-of-experts model, 46 billion active per token; ~1,000,000-token context window; Deliberate internal reasoning pass before every answer, thinking time shown; Six thinking levels, Light to Hyper Ultra — Hyper Ultra (Plan mode, MAX): draft, self-written rubric, self-grade, revision; Dynamic answer length, up to a 9,000-character cap; Photo input — up to ten images per message; Live web access in Plan mode — up to ten search-and-read rounds per answer, every source cited; Image generation — health and anatomy illustrations inline; Plan mode progress timeline; In NOX WORK: document reading, image background removal and upscaling, connected-app reads.

What architecture does Nox Orion 2 use?

Architecture: Mixture-of-experts — 824 billion parameters total, 46 billion active per token; the 700-billion-parameter 1.3 Astra backbone extended with roughly 100 billion parameters of additional trainable components.

How large is Nox Orion 2's context window?

Context window: ~1,000,000 tokens

How long are Nox Orion 2's answers?

Answer length: Dynamic — sized to the question, up to a 9,000-character hard cap

Which thinking levels does Nox Orion 2 offer?

Thinking levels: Six — Light, Balanced, Extra, Max, Ultra, Hyper Ultra (Hyper Ultra in Plan mode on MAX, ~5–6 minutes per answer)

Which Nox plans include Nox Orion 2?

Available in Plan mode on Pro and MAX.

Which retired Nox models does Nox Orion 2 replace?

Nox Orion 2 is the named replacement for Nox 1.4 Orion (retired on September 23, 2026), Nox 1.3 Nova (retired on September 23, 2026) and Nox Agent 1.2 (retired on September 23, 2026). Each retired model's page states what its replacement covers.

Related Nox models

• Nox 1.4 Orion — Retired — the flagship of the Nox 1.4 generation (retired)
• Nox 1.3 Nova — Retired — the balanced model of the 1.3 family (retired)
• Nox Agent 1.2 — Retired — Nox's former dedicated research mode (retired)
• Nox Orion Flash 2 — The fast Orion — full thinking depth, 300B model
• Nox 1.3 Astra — Deep reasoning with a one-million-token context
• Nox Vela 2 — The fast model on every plan — now more accurate
• Nox Voice 1 Advance — Officially launched spoken Nox — live on every plan
• Nox Voice 1.2 — Talk to Nox in real time

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