GGML - Large Language Models for Everyone

GGML is a C library for machine learning (ML) - the "GG" refers to the initials of its originator (Georgi Gerganov). In addition to defining low-level machine learning primitives (like a tensor type), GGML defines a binary format for distributing large language models (LLMs). This crate provides Rust bindings into the reference implementation of GGML, as well as a collection of native Rust helpers to provide safe, idiomatic access to those bindings. GGML makes use of a technique called "quantization" that allows for large language models to run on consumer hardware. This documents describes the basics of the GGML format, including how quantization is used to democratize access to LLMs.

Format

GGML files consists of binary-encoded data that is laid out according to a specified format. The format specifies what kind of data is present in the file, how it is represented, and the order in which it appears. The first piece of information present in a valid GGML file is a GGML version number, followed by three components that define a large language model: the model's hyperparameters, its vocabulary, and its weights. Continue reading to learn more about GGML versions and the components of a GGML model.

GGML Versions

GGML is "bleeding-edge" technology and undergoes frequent changes. In an effort to support rapid development without sacrificing backwards-compatibility, GGML uses versioning to introduce improvements that may change the format of the encoding. For example, newer versions of GGML make use of vocabulary-scoring, which introduces extra information into the encoding, as well as mmap, which enhances performance through memory-mapping. The first value that is present in a valid GGML file is a "magic number" that indicates the GGML version that was used to encode the model.

Hyperparameters

The term "hyperparameter" describes a value that is used to configure the behavior of a large language model; this is in contrast to the model's parameters, which are the weights that were derived in the training process that was used to create the model. Each model defines its own hyperparameter structure that defines the hyperparameter values accepted by that model. Valid GGML files must list these values in the correct order, and each value must be represented using the correct data type. Although hyperparameters are different across models, some attributes appear in the hyperparameters for most models:

• n_vocab: the size of the model's vocabulary
• n_embd: the size of the model's "embedding layer", which is used during prompt ingestion
• n_layer: the number of layers in the model; each layer represents a set of weights.

Vocabulary

As the name implies, a model's vocabulary comprises components that are used by the model to generate language (text). However, unlike the vocabulary of a human, which consists of words, the vocabulary of a large language model consists of "tokens". A token can be an entire word, but oftentimes they are word fragments. Just like humans can compose millions of words from just a dozen or two letters, large language models use tokens to express a large number of words from a relatively smaller number of components. Consider a vocabulary with the following tokens: whi, ch le, who, and a; this vocabulary can be used to create the English words "which", "while", "who", "a", and "leach". How would the behavior change if the model contained the following tokens: wh, ich, ile, o, and leach? Choices such as these allow model-creators to tune the behavior and performance of their models.

As described above, the model's hyperparameters typically contains a value that specifies the number of tokens in the vocabulary. The vocabulary is encoded as a list of tokens, each of which includes a 32-bit integer that specifies the length of the token. Depending on the GGML version, the token may also include a 32-bit floating point score, which represents the frequency of that token in the model's training data.

Weights

The final, and largest, component of a GGML file is the weights of the LLM that the file represents. Abstractly, a large language model is software that is used to generate language - just like software that is used to generate images can be improved by increasing the number of colors with which images can be rendered, large language models can be improved by increasing the number of weights in the model. The total number of weights in a model are referred to as the "size" of that model. For example, the StableLM implementation of the GPT-NeoX language model architecture is available in a number of sizes, like 3B and 7B, which stands for 3-billion and 7-billion, respectively. These numbers refer to the total number of weights in that model. As described in the hyperparameters section, weights are grouped together in sets called "layers", which, like hyperparameters, have structures that are uniquely defined by the model architecture; within a layer, weights are grouped together in structures called "tensors". So, for instance, both StableLM 3B and StableLM 7B use layers that comprise the same tensors, but StableLM 3B has relatively fewer layers when compared to StableLM 7B.

In GGML, a tensor consists of a number of components, including: a name, a 4-element list that represents the number of dimensions in the tensor and their lengths, and a list of the weights in that tensor. For example, consider the following 2 ⨯ 2 tensor named tensor_a0:

A simplification of the GGML representation of tensor_a0 is {"tensor_a0", [2, 2, 1, 1], [1.0, 0.0, 0.1, 1.1]}. Note that the 4-element list of dimensions uses 1 as a placeholder for unused dimensions - this is because the product of the dimensions should not equal zero.

The weights in a GGML file are encoded as a list of layers, the length of which is typically specified in the model's hyperparameters; each layer is encoded as an ordered set of tensors.

Quantization

LLM weights are floating point (decimal) numbers. Just like it requires more space to represent a large integer (e.g. 1000) compared to a small integer (e.g. 1), it requires more space to represent a high-precision floating point number (e.g. 0.0001) compared to a low-precision floating number (e.g. 0.1). The process of "quantizing" a large language model involves reducing the precision with which weights are represented in order to reduce the resources required to use the model. GGML supports a number of different quantization strategies (e.g. 4-bit, 5-bit, and 8-bit quantization), each of which offers different trade-offs between efficiency and performance. More information about these trade-offs can be found in the documentation for llama.cpp, which is another project by the maintainer of GGML. Technical details about quantization are described in this video by @Aemon-Algiz.