In a groundbreaking development, Answer.AI, in collaboration with renowned researchers and organizations, has unveiled a pioneering open-source system that brings the power of training colossal language models to your desktop. For the first time, leveraging Fully Sharded Data Parallel (FSDP) and Quantization over Low-Rank Adaptation (QLoRA), individuals can efficiently train a 70 billion parameter model using just a pair of standard 24GB gaming GPUs. This initiative not only democratizes AI research by making it accessible to a broader audience but also marks a significant stride towards innovation in AI model training methodologies.
A New Dawn in AI Accessibility
The collaboration between Answer.AI, Tim Dettmers from the University of Washington, and Hugging Face's Titus von Koeller and Sourab Mangrulkar, has birthed a system that is a testament to human ingenuity and the power of collaborative effort. Teknium, the creator behind the immensely popular OpenHermes models, lauds this achievement, highlighting the doors it opens for small labs to explore and develop models of unprecedented scale locally.
Answer.AI's mission is crystal clear: to make AI universally beneficial. Moving beyond the passive use of pre-existing models, they envision a future where individuals can craft their own AI models, tailored to their unique needs, ensuring they remain at the helm of their technological interactions.
The Vision Behind the Innovation
This project stemmed from the recognition of a stark disparity in AI model training hardware. Data center-class hardware, with its exorbitant cost, has been the go-to for training deep learning models. In contrast, gaming GPUs offer a more cost-effective alternative but come with a significant drawback – limited memory. This limitation has historically restricted the use of consumer-grade GPUs for training large language models, despite their computational prowess.
Answer.AI’s solution breaks this barrier by utilizing FSDP and QLoRA, technologies that together, overcome the memory constraints of gaming GPUs. This approach not only significantly reduces the cost of training large models but also makes it feasible for the wider AI community.
The Breakthrough Technologies: FSDP and QLoRA
FSDP revolutionizes model training by enabling the distribution of model parameters across multiple GPUs, thus bypassing the memory limitations of individual GPUs. Meanwhile, QLoRA introduces a novel approach by combining quantization and low-rank adaptation, allowing for the training of large models on hardware that would otherwise be incapable of supporting their memory requirements.
This synergy between FSDP and QLoRA is at the heart of Answer.AI's system, facilitating the training of a 70 billion parameter model on relatively modest hardware setups.
How to Leverage FSDP/QLoRA for Model Training
For those eager to embark on training their own AI models using this system, the prerequisites are straightforward. Access to more than one GPU is essential, with dual 3090 GPUs being a suitable starting point. The system requires the installation of the latest versions of essential libraries and frameworks such as Transformers, PEFT, and bitsandbytes.
With a simple setup and an example script provided by Answer.AI, enthusiasts can begin training models on datasets of their choosing. While the system is in its early stages and might require some debugging and testing, it represents a significant leap towards making AI model training more accessible and less reliant on high-end hardware.
Looking Ahead
The release of this system is just the beginning. Answer.AI is committed to continuous improvement and eagerly anticipates contributions from the open-source community to further refine and enhance the capabilities of FSDP and QLoRA. This initiative not only paves the way for more cost-effective AI model training but also underscores the importance of making AI technology accessible to all, fostering innovation and creativity across the globe.
As we stand on the brink of a new era in AI development, the potential for what can be achieved when barriers to entry are lowered is boundless. Answer.AI's pioneering project invites us to reimagine the future of AI, where everyone has the tools to contribute to the advancement of intelligent systems, making AI truly a resource for the masses.
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