Sonar
No estimate
No hardware requirements for this model
The weights for this model have not been published, so it cannot be downloaded or run on your own hardware at any size. It is reachable only through its provider, and no graphics card changes that.
On record
Full specification
Everything on record for this model. Most of it describes how it was trained rather than how it runs — useful context for judging how much work went into it, and how it compares with models built at a different scale.
Origin
Who built this model, where, and when it was published.
- Organisation
- Perplexity
- Organisation type
- Industry
- Country
- United States of America
- Published
- 11 February 2025
What it does
The problem areas the model was built for. A model can carry several of each.
- Domain
- Language
- Task
- Question answering, Chat, Language modeling/generation, Quantitative reasoning, Search
- Base model
- Llama 3.3 70B
Size
How large the model is and how much data it was trained on. Parameters are the figure that decides whether it fits on a given graphics card.
- Parameters
- 70B
- Training data
- tokens
70B (assuming same as base model Llama 3.3 70B)
Availability
Whether you can obtain the model and run it on your own hardware, which is what decides if any of the graphics-card figures on this page apply.
- Weights
- Closed — provider access only
- Model access
- API access
- Training code
- Unreleased
How it is classified
Labels the source dataset applies when tracking notable models, and how confident it is in the entry.
- Record confidence
- Confident
Sources
Where this record came from and when it was last checked.
- Reference
- Meet new Sonar: A Blazing Fast Model Optimized for Perplexity Search
- Last updated
- 28 November 2025
What the numbers mean
Where it came from
Sonar was published by Perplexity, in United States of America, in February 2025. The organisation is categorised as industry.
It works in Language, and is recorded as doing question answering, Chat, Language modeling/generation, Quantitative reasoning, Search.
It builds on Llama 3.3 70B, which is why it shares that model's general shape and size.
Because the weights are not available, none of the hardware figures elsewhere on this site apply to it.
Answers
Sonar — common questions
Who created Sonar?
Sonar was published by Perplexity, based in United States of America, categorised as industry.
When was Sonar released?
Sonar was published in February 2025.
What is Sonar used for?
Sonar works in Language, and is recorded as handling question answering, Chat, Language modeling/generation, Quantitative reasoning, Search. A model can carry several of each, so these are the areas it was built for rather than a limit on what it will attempt.
What GPU do I need to run Sonar?
None. Sonar is a closed model — its weights were never published, so it cannot be downloaded or run on your own hardware at any price. It is reachable only through its provider.
Is Sonar open source?
No. Sonar has not had its weights published, so it exists only as a service controlled by its owner.
How many parameters does Sonar have?
Sonar has 70B parameters. 70B (assuming same as base model Llama 3.3 70B). That figure is the total, and it is what decides how much memory the model needs — roughly half a gigabyte per billion at the compression most people use.
The other direction
Looking at it from the other side?
This page starts from the model. If you already own a card and want to know everything it will run, start from the hardware instead.