What does INT8 Quantization with Calibration primarily reduce in large language models?

INT8 Quantization with Calibration is a technique used to reduce the precision of the weights and activations in large language models, typically from floating-point formats to an 8-bit integer representation. This process primarily results in a significant reduction in model size. By converting the parameters of the model into a more compact format, it minimizes the amount of storage required to hold the weights, which can lead to more efficient deployment, especially in resource-constrained environments.

While reducing model size also has implications for memory usage and can indirectly affect inference time and latency, the direct and most noticeable impact of implementing INT8 quantization is the decreased size of the model. This compact representation allows for easier loading into memory and can enhance performance when deploying models on hardware with limited computational resources. The calibration step ensures that the original model's accuracy is preserved as much as possible despite the lower precision, further emphasizing that the primary goal of INT8 quantization with calibration is to make the model more manageable in terms of size without sacrificing too much performance.