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  • Continuum
  • Data
    • Datasets
      • Pre Training Data
      • Types of Fine Tuning
      • Self Instruct Paper
      • Self-Alignment with Instruction Backtranslation
      • Systematic Evaluation of Instruction-Tuned Large Language Models on Open Datasets
      • Instruction Tuning
      • Instruction Fine Tuning - Alpagasus
      • Less is More For Alignment
      • Enhanced Supervised Fine Tuning
      • Visualising Data using t-SNE
      • UMAP: Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection for Dimension Reduction
      • Training and Evaluation Datasets
      • What is perplexity?
  • MODELS
    • Foundation Models
      • The leaderboard
      • Foundation Models
      • LLama 2 - Analysis
      • Analysis of Llama 3
      • Llama 3.1 series
      • Google Gemini 1.5
      • Platypus: Quick, Cheap, and Powerful Refinement of LLMs
      • Mixtral of Experts
      • Mixture-of-Agents (MoA)
      • Phi 1.5
        • Refining the Art of AI Training: A Deep Dive into Phi 1.5's Innovative Approach
      • Phi 2.0
      • Phi-3 Technical Report
  • Training
    • The Fine Tuning Process
      • Why fine tune?
        • Does Fine-Tuning LLMs on New Knowledge Encourage Hallucinations?
        • Explanations in Fine Tuning
      • Tokenization
        • Tokenization Is More Than Compression
        • Tokenization - SentencePiece
        • Tokenization explore
        • Tokenizer Choice For LLM Training: Negligible or Crucial?
        • Getting the most out of your tokenizer for pre-training and domain adaptation
        • TokenMonster
      • Parameter Efficient Fine Tuning
        • P-Tuning
          • The Power of Scale for Parameter-Efficient Prompt Tuning
        • Prefix-Tuning: Optimizing Continuous Prompts for Generation
        • Harnessing the Power of PEFT: A Smarter Approach to Fine-tuning Pre-trained Models
        • What is Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) - explained by the inventor
        • Low Rank Adaptation (Lora)
        • Practical Tips for Fine-tuning LMs Using LoRA (Low-Rank Adaptation)
        • QLORA: Efficient Finetuning of Quantized LLMs
        • Bits and Bytes
        • The Magic behind Qlora
        • Practical Guide to LoRA: Tips and Tricks for Effective Model Adaptation
        • The quantization constant
        • QLORA: Efficient Finetuning of Quantized Language Models
        • QLORA and Fine-Tuning of Quantized Language Models (LMs)
        • ReLoRA: High-Rank Training Through Low-Rank Updates
        • SLoRA: Federated Parameter Efficient Fine-Tuning of Language Models
        • GaLora: Memory-Efficient LLM Training by Gradient Low-Rank Projection
      • Hyperparameters
        • Batch Size
        • Padding Tokens
        • Mixed precision training
        • FP8 Formats for Deep Learning
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        • Batch Size and Model loss
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        • Rethinking Learning Rate Tuning in the Era of Language Models
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        • A process for choosing the learning rate
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        • A Survey on Efficient Training of Transformers
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        • Extending the context window
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        • Sliding Window Attention
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        • Reinforcement Learning
        • An introduction to reinforcement learning
        • Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF)
        • Direct Preference Optimization: Your Language Model is Secretly a Reward Model
  • INFERENCE
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      • SLORA
  • KNOWLEDGE
    • Vector Databases
      • A Comprehensive Survey on Vector Databases
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      • Using the Output Embedding to Improve Language Models
      • Decoding Sentence-BERT
      • ColBERT: Efficient and Effective Passage Search via Contextualized Late Interaction over BERT
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      • Questions Are All You Need to Train a Dense Passage Retriever
      • Improving Text Embeddings with Large Language Models
      • Massive Text Embedding Benchmark
      • RocketQAv2: A Joint Training Method for Dense Passage Retrieval and Passage Re-ranking
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      • Embedding and Fine-Tuning in Neural Language Models
      • Embedding Model Construction
      • Demystifying Embedding Spaces using Large Language Models
      • Fine-Tuning Llama for Multi-Stage Text Retrieval
      • Large Language Model Based Text Augmentation Enhanced Personality Detection Model
      • One Embedder, Any Task: Instruction-Finetuned Text Embeddings
      • Vector Databases are not the only solution
      • Knowledge Graphs
        • Harnessing Knowledge Graphs to Elevate AI: A Technical Exploration
        • Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap
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      • Vector Similarity Search - HNSW
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      • A Survey on Retrieval-Augmented Text Generation
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      • Generate Rather Than Retrieve: Large Language Models Are Strong Context Generators
      • Active Retrieval Augmented Generation
      • DSPy: LM Assertions: Enhancing Language Model Pipelines with Computational Constraints
      • DSPy: Compiling Declarative Language Model Calls
      • DSPy: In-Context Learning for Extreme Multi-Label Classification
      • Optimizing Instructions and Demonstrations for Multi-Stage Language Model Programs
      • HYDE: Revolutionising Search with Hypothetical Document Embeddings
      • Enhancing Recommender Systems with Large Language Model Reasoning Graphs
      • Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) versus fine tuning
      • RAFT: Adapting Language Model to Domain Specific RAG
      • Summarisation Methods and RAG
      • Lessons Learned on LLM RAG Solutions
      • Stanford: Retrieval Augmented Language Models
      • Overview of RAG Approaches with Vector Databases
      • Mastering Chunking in Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) Systems
    • Semantic Routing
    • Resource Description Framework (RDF)
  • AGENTS
    • What is agency?
      • Rephrase and Respond: Let Large Language Models Ask Better Questions for Themselves
      • Types of Agents
      • The risk of AI agency
      • Understanding Personality in Large Language Models: A New Frontier in AI Psychology
      • AI Agents - Reasoning, Planning, and Tool Calling
      • Personality and Brand
      • Agent Interaction via APIs
      • Bridging Minds and Machines: The Legacy of Newell, Shaw, and Simon
      • A Survey on Language Model based Autonomous Agents
      • Large Language Models as Agents
      • AI Reasoning: A Deep Dive into Chain-of-Thought Prompting
      • Enhancing AI Reasoning with Self-Taught Reasoner (STaR)
      • Exploring the Frontier of AI: The "Tree of Thoughts" Framework
      • Toolformer: Revolutionising Language Models with API Integration - An Analysis
      • TaskMatrix.AI: Bridging Foundational AI Models with Specialised Systems for Enhanced Task Completion
      • Unleashing the Power of LLMs in API Integration: The Rise of Gorilla
      • Andrew Ng's presentation on AI agents
      • Making AI accessible with Andrej Karpathy and Stephanie Zhan
  • Regulation and Ethics
    • Regulation and Ethics
      • Privacy
      • Detecting AI Generated content
      • Navigating the IP Maze in AI: The Convergence of Blockchain, Web 3.0, and LLMs
      • Adverse Reactions to generative AI
      • Navigating the Ethical Minefield: The Challenge of Security in Large Language Models
      • Navigating the Uncharted Waters: The Risks of Autonomous AI in Military Decision-Making
  • DISRUPTION
    • Data Architecture
      • What is a data pipeline?
      • What is Reverse ETL?
      • Unstructured Data and Generatve AI
      • Resource Description Framework (RDF)
      • Integrating generative AI with the Semantic Web
    • Search
      • BM25 - Search Engine Ranking Function
      • BERT as a reranking engine
      • BERT and Google
      • Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO)
      • Billion-scale similarity search with GPUs
      • FOLLOWIR: Evaluating and Teaching Information Retrieval Models to Follow Instructions
      • Neural Collaborative Filtering
      • Federated Neural Collaborative Filtering
      • Latent Space versus Embedding Space
      • Improving Text Embeddings with Large Language Models
    • Recommendation Engines
      • On Interpretation and Measurement of Soft Attributes for Recommendation
      • A Survey on Large Language Models for Recommendation
      • Model driven recommendation systems
      • Recommender AI Agent: Integrating Large Language Models for Interactive Recommendations
      • Foundation Models for Recommender Systems
      • Exploring the Impact of Large Language Models on Recommender Systems: An Extensive Review
      • AI driven recommendations - harming autonomy?
    • Logging
      • A Taxonomy of Anomalies in Log Data
      • Deeplog
      • LogBERT: Log Anomaly Detection via BERT
      • Experience Report: Deep Learning-based System Log Analysis for Anomaly Detection
      • Log-based Anomaly Detection with Deep Learning: How Far Are We?
      • Deep Learning for Anomaly Detection in Log Data: A Survey
      • LogGPT
      • Adaptive Semantic Gate Networks (ASGNet) for log-based anomaly diagnosis
  • Infrastructure
    • The modern data centre
      • Enhancing Data Centre Efficiency: Strategies to Improve PUE
      • TCO of NVIDIA GPUs and falling barriers to entry
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      • Data Centres
      • Liquid Cooling
    • Servers and Chips
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      • NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express)
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      • Next-generation networking in AI environments
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    • Data and Memory
      • NVIDIA BlueField Data Processing Units (DPUs)
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      • Model Requirements
      • Calculating GPU memory for serving LLMs
      • Transformer training costs
      • GPU Performance Optimisation
    • Libraries and Complements
      • NVIDIA Base Command
      • NVIDIA AI Enterprise
      • CUDA - NVIDIA GTC 2024 presentation
      • RAPIDs
      • RAFT
    • Vast Data Platform
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      • DASE (Disaggregated and Shared Everything)
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      • WEKA: A High-Performance Storage Solution for AI Workloads
      • Introduction to NVIDIA GPUDirect Storage (GDS)
        • GDS cuFile API
      • NVIDIA Magnum IO GPUDirect Storage (GDS)
      • Vectors in Memory
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  • Here is a summary of the author's tips
  • Expanding LoRA to More Layers

Was this helpful?

  1. Training
  2. The Fine Tuning Process
  3. Parameter Efficient Fine Tuning

Practical Tips for Fine-tuning LMs Using LoRA (Low-Rank Adaptation)

PreviousLow Rank Adaptation (Lora)NextQLORA: Efficient Finetuning of Quantized LLMs

Last updated 11 months ago

Was this helpful?

This is a terrific article from the genius Sebastian Raschka, Phd.

The article provides valuable insights and lessons learned from the author's experiments with Low-rank Adaptation (LoRA), a widely used technique for efficiently training custom large language models (LLMs).

The main takeaways include the consistency of LoRA training outcomes across multiple runs, the trade-off's of using QLoRA (quantized LoRA) for memory savings, and the minimal impact of optimizer choice on LLM fine-tuning.

The author also discusses the importance of applying LoRA across all layers, adjusting the LoRA rank and alpha value, and the feasibility of fine-tuning 7 billion parameter models on a single GPU.

Additionally, the article addresses common questions related to LoRA, such as the significance of the dataset, the effectiveness of LoRA for domain adaptation, and strategies for avoiding overfitting.

The author compares LoRA to full fine-tuning and RLHF (Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback), highlighting the memory efficiency and performance of LoRA.

The article also explores the possibility of combining multiple sets of LoRA weights and discusses the concept of Layer-wise Optimal Rank Adaptation.

Here is a summary of the author's tips

Consistency in LLM Training: Even though there's some randomness in training language models (LMs) and models on GPUs, the results are usually pretty consistent when you run the training multiple times.

QLoRA for Memory Efficiency: QLoRA is a good choice when you don't have a lot of GPU memory. It can save about a third of the memory but makes training about 39% slower. It's a good option if memory is your biggest problem.

Optimiser Choice in Fine-Tuning: It doesn't make a big difference which optimiser you choose (AdamW, SGD with scheduler, AdamW with scheduler). SGD by itself isn't as good, but the others are all pretty similar.

Adam Optimizer and Memory Usage: The Adam optimizer uses more memory because it has two extra numbers for each number in the model. But for LMs, this doesn't make the memory usage a lot higher because most of the memory is used for big matrix calculations, not for storing the extra numbers.

Multi-Epoch Training and Static Datasets: Training on the same dataset multiple times (multi-epoch training) might not help and could even make the model worse, probably because it starts to overfit the data.

Application of LoRA: To make the model work its best, use LoRA on all the layers, not just the Key and Value matrices.

Adjusting LoRA Parameters: It's important to choose the right LoRA rank and alpha value. A good rule of thumb is to make alpha twice as big as the rank.

Fine-tuning 7 Billion Parameter Models: You can finetune these big models in just a few hours on a single GPU with 14 GB of memory. But it's hard to make an LLM do well on all benchmark tasks with just one dataset. You might need to use different datasets or tools.

Expanding LoRA to More Layers

The article talks about experiments where LoRA was first used only on Key and Value weight matrices in transformer layers.

Using it on Query weight matrices, projection layers, and other linear layers too makes the number of trainable parameters much bigger (from about 4.2 million to over 20 million for a model with 7 billion parameters).

This uses more memory (16.62 GB instead of 14.18 GB) but can make the model perform noticeably better.

The author says they only tried two settings (LoRA for just the query and value matrices, and LoRA for all layers) and suggests that future experiments should look at other combinations, like what happens if you use LoRA for projection layers.

Balancing LoRA Hyperparameters - Rank (R) and Alpha (α)

The article explains the importance of the scaling coefficient in LoRA, which uses the rank parameter (r) and another hyperparameter α (alpha).

The formula for scaling is α / r, and the LoRA weights' influence gets bigger with this scaling factor. The author tried different rank values and found that making α twice as big as r usually gives the best results. This was especially clear when r was set to 256, where the best α was found to be 512.

Training 7 Billion Parameter Models on a Single GPU

One of the big benefits of LoRA, as the article points out, is that it lets you fine-tune big models (like a model with 7 billion parameters) on just one GPU.

Using QLoRA with the best settings (r=256 and α=512) and an AdamW optimizer, you can fine-tune a model this big in about 3 hours on an A100 GPU, even with a big training dataset (like the Alpaca dataset with 50,000 examples).

LogoPractical Tips for Finetuning LLMs Using LoRA (Low-Rank Adaptation)
An excellent article from
SEBASTIAN RASCHKA, PHD
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