Building voice agents with Nvidia open models
Fans cheer instant talk tech while Linux diehards ask for “apt install”
TLDR: NVIDIA launched open voice models that transcribe in under 25 milliseconds and power snappy talk-to-computer assistants. Commenters split between hyped voice-first workflows and Linux veterans craving simple “apt install,” debating cloud vs local and whether open tools finally beat closed systems—making fast, customizable voice tech feel mainstream.
NVIDIA just dropped open voice tools promising blink-fast replies—Nemotron Speech ASR claims sub-25ms transcription, Nemotron 3 Nano does the thinking, and Magpie TTS speaks back. The crowd went wild, but split: voice-first dreamers vs terminal traditionalists. One nostalgic Linux fan waved the old-school flag, linking to Festival and begging for a modern “apt install” replacement. Another user fantasized about running their code editor by voice—no typing, just talk—and a builder shouted “perfect for my agent framework,” already gearing up to ship.
The vibe? Open models finally feel fast enough to challenge the closed, corporate stuff. You can run the agent on the cloud (Modal) or go local with big NVIDIA GPUs like RTX 5090—flexible for tinkerers and teams. The drama centers on whether classic pipelines (speech-to-text + language model + text-to-speech) beat the new end-to-end “talk-in, talk-out” dream. Jokes flew about “blink and it transcribes” and “Star Trek conversations without the awkward pause.” Underneath the memes, the real tension is privacy and control: devs want speed and natural speech, but they also want customizable, self-hostable options that don’t lock them in. If these open models keep pace, voice agents might finally go mainstream—and yes, with actual personality.
Key Points
- •The post details building a voice agent with three NVIDIA open models: Nemotron Speech ASR (streaming ASR), Nemotron 3 Nano (LLM), and Magpie TTS (TTS).
- •Nemotron Speech ASR achieves sub-25 ms transcription and is launched on Hugging Face; the system uses Pipecat for low-latency orchestration.
- •Code is available on GitHub and can run on Modal for multi-user scale or locally on NVIDIA DGX Spark or RTX 5090.
- •Two architectures are discussed: a pipeline of specialized models versus emerging speech-to-speech models; pipelines currently dominate enterprise use.
- •Open models are becoming viable for production: Nemotron Speech ASR benchmarks at or above commercial ASR, and Nemotron 3 Nano leads its class on long-context tasks.