Latest developments in low-bit quantization for LLMs, like AQLM and AutoRound, at the moment are displaying acceptable ranges of degradation in downstream duties, particularly for big fashions. That stated, 2-bit quantization nonetheless introduces noticeable accuracy loss typically.
One promising algorithm for low-bit quantization is VPTQ (MIT license), proposed by Microsoft. It was launched in October 2024 and has since proven glorious efficiency and effectivity in quantizing giant fashions.
On this article, we are going to:
- Overview the VPTQ quantization algorithm.
- Display the right way to use VPTQ fashions, lots of that are already accessible. As an example, we are able to simply discover low-bit variants of Llama 3.3 70B, Llama 3.1 405B, and Qwen2.5 72B.
- Consider these fashions and talk about the outcomes to know when VPTQ fashions could be a sensible choice for LLMs in manufacturing.
Remarkably, 2-bit quantization with VPTQ virtually achieves efficiency similar to the unique 16-bit mannequin on duties akin to MMLU. Furthermore, it permits operating Llama 3.1 405B on a single GPU, whereas utilizing much less reminiscence than a 70B mannequin!
