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What is Quantization?

A plain-English explanation of Quantization (Quantization) — what it means, why it matters, and how it is used in AI.

Quantization
Quantization
Quantization is a technique for reducing the size and memory requirements of AI models by representing their weights using lower-precision numbers.
"A 70-billion-parameter model requires about 140GB of GPU memory at full precision. With 4-bit quantization, it shrinks to roughly 35GB."

Also known as: Model quantization, weight quantization, INT8, INT4

LoRAQLoRAInferenceGPU

Why does Quantization matter?

Quantization is essential for running large models on limited hardware — enabling local deployment on laptops and consumer GPUs.

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LoRAQLoRAInferenceGPU