Run Large Language Models On A Budget: Model Quantization And GGUF For Efficient GPU-Free Operation

Explore LLM quantization and run GGUF files in ctransformers

Eric Kleppen
5 min readJan 4, 2024
Photo by Ira Ostafiichuk on Unsplash

A Fast Moving Field

The field of Natural Language Processing (NLP) is developing at breakneck speed. It seems like every week there is a cutting edge model to try, or a new optimization technique to learn. It is tough to keep up with, especially for someone who just wants to explore chat models without breaking the bank on expensive hardware.

In this article, we’ll delve into the world of Large Language Model quantization. I’ll provide a high-level overview of what model quantization is and who some of the key pioneers behind the development are. Then we’ll load some code and explore how to run GGUF models using the ctransformers Python Library.

#if you have a Nvida GPU
pip install ctransformers[cuda]

#if you don't have GPU
pip install ctransformers

GGUF is a new quantized model format introduced by the llama.cpp team on August 21st 2023. We’ll touch on Llama.cpp below. GGUF files can be found on HuggingFace. If you enjoy my work and want to learn more, follow me on Medium!

What is Model Quantization?

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