Pith. sign in

REVIEW 32 cited by

Learned Step Size Quantization

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv 1902.08153 v3 pith:BDBY4RNL submitted 2019-02-21 cs.LG stat.ML

Learned Step Size Quantization

classification cs.LG stat.ML
keywords precisionaccuracylearnednetworkssizestepapproachexisting
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
0 comments
read the original abstract

Deep networks run with low precision operations at inference time offer power and space advantages over high precision alternatives, but need to overcome the challenge of maintaining high accuracy as precision decreases. Here, we present a method for training such networks, Learned Step Size Quantization, that achieves the highest accuracy to date on the ImageNet dataset when using models, from a variety of architectures, with weights and activations quantized to 2-, 3- or 4-bits of precision, and that can train 3-bit models that reach full precision baseline accuracy. Our approach builds upon existing methods for learning weights in quantized networks by improving how the quantizer itself is configured. Specifically, we introduce a novel means to estimate and scale the task loss gradient at each weight and activation layer's quantizer step size, such that it can be learned in conjunction with other network parameters. This approach works using different levels of precision as needed for a given system and requires only a simple modification of existing training code.

discussion (0)

Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.

Forward citations

Cited by 32 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

  1. Alignment Collapse Under KV Cache Quantization: Diagnosis and Mitigation

    cs.LG 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 8.0

    KV cache quantization silently erodes LLM safety alignment via vulnerable low-dimensional subspaces, diagnosed by Per-Channel Reduction into three failure modes and mitigated training-free with up to 97% recovery.

  2. Zero-Shot Quantization for Object Detectors using Off-the-Shelf Generative Models

    cs.LG 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 7.0

    GoodQ uses generative models with information-dense prompting, distribution-aware selection, and teacher-guided noise reduction to achieve SOTA low-bit (W4A4) and extreme-bit (W3A3) zero-shot quantization for object d...

  3. Layerwise Progressive Freezing: A Training Scaffold for Depth-Scalable Binary Networks

    cs.LG 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 7.0

    StoMPP progressively binarizes BNN layers layerwise from input to output via stochastic masks, delivering depth-scalable accuracy gains in a fully STE-free regime by controlling activation-induced gradient blockades.

  4. Neural Network Quantization by Learning Low-Loss Subspaces

    cs.CV 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 7.0

    Learning quantization-aware linear paths in weight space yields a midpoint whose direct quantization matches quantization-aware training performance without using straight-through estimators.

  5. Llamas on the Web: Memory-Efficient, Performance-Portable, and Multi-Precision LLM Inference with WebGPU

    cs.DC 2026-05 conditional novelty 7.0

    LlamaWeb is a WebGPU backend for llama.cpp that uses static memory planning, tunable kernels, and templated multi-precision support to cut memory use by 29-33% and raise decode throughput by 45-69% versus prior browse...

  6. When Bits Break Recourse: Counterfactual-Faithful Quantization

    cs.LG 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 7.0

    CFQ trains quantizer parameters and mixed-precision allocation to preserve counterfactual recourse validity, cost, and direction on Adult, German Credit, and COMPAS while matching accuracy of standard quantizers.

  7. DPQuant: Efficient and Differentially-Private Model Training via Dynamic Quantization Scheduling

    cs.LG 2025-09 unverdicted novelty 7.0

    DPQuant uses epoch-wise probabilistic layer rotation and DP loss sensitivity to quantize only a changing subset of layers, reducing accuracy degradation from quantization noise in DP-SGD and delivering up to 2.21x thr...

  8. Reclaiming Residual Knowledge: A Novel Paradigm to Low-Bit Quantization

    cs.CV 2024-08 unverdicted novelty 7.0

    CoRa reclaims quantization residuals in pre-trained ConvNets by searching low-rank adapter architectures instead of weights, matching SOTA accuracy on ImageNet in 3-4 bit settings with under 250 iterations on 1600 images.

  9. LLM.int8(): 8-bit Matrix Multiplication for Transformers at Scale

    cs.LG 2022-08 conditional novelty 7.0

    LLM.int8() performs 8-bit inference for transformers up to 175B parameters with no accuracy loss by combining vector-wise quantization for most features with 16-bit mixed-precision handling of systematic outlier dimensions.

  10. Zero-Shot Quantization for Object Detectors using Off-the-Shelf Generative Models

    cs.LG 2026-06 conditional novelty 6.0

    Diffusion-generated, distribution-matched synthetic images enable zero-shot quantized object detectors to outperform prior zero-shot methods and even real-data QAT at 4-bit and 3-bit precision.

  11. Motion-Compensated Weight Compression

    cs.CV 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    MCWC aligns permutation-symmetric blocks across layers to enable sequential prediction and residual entropy coding, improving rate-accuracy tradeoffs versus quantization and prior codecs on language and vision models.

  12. When Bits Break Recourse: Counterfactual-Faithful Quantization

    cs.LG 2026-05 conditional novelty 6.0

    Quantization can preserve accuracy while invalidating algorithmic recourse; CFQ trains the quantized model at teacher recourse points and preserves counterfactual validity and recourse cost.

  13. When Bits Break Recourse: Counterfactual-Faithful Quantization

    cs.LG 2026-05 conditional novelty 6.0

    Quantization-aware training that enforces the quantized model's decision at full-precision counterfactual points keeps algorithmic recourse valid at matched accuracy and bit budget.

  14. Nonlinear Bipolar Compensation: Handling Outliers in Post-Training Quantization

    cs.CV 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    Nonlinear Bipolar Compensation with Bipolar Logarithmic Transformation reduces outlier effects in post-training quantization by performing compensation in a compressed transformed space.

  15. LoKA: Low-precision Kernel Applications for Recommendation Models At Scale

    cs.LG 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    LoKA enables practical FP8 use in numerically sensitive large recommendation models via online profiling of activations, reusable model modifications for stability, and dynamic kernel dispatching.

  16. LoKA: Low-precision Kernel Applications for Recommendation Models At Scale

    cs.LG 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    LoKA enables practical FP8 use in numerically sensitive large recommendation models via profiling, model adaptations, and runtime kernel orchestration.

  17. OSAQ: Outlier Self-Absorption for Accurate Low-bit LLM Quantization

    cs.LG 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    OSAQ suppresses weight outliers in LLMs via a closed-form additive transformation from the Hessian's stable null space, improving 2-bit quantization perplexity by over 40% versus vanilla GPTQ with no inference overhead.

  18. OSAQ: Outlier Self-Absorption for Accurate Low-bit LLM Quantization

    cs.LG 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    OSAQ uses the low-rank structure of the Hessian to construct a closed-form additive weight transformation that suppresses outliers without changing task loss, enabling better low-bit LLM quantization.

  19. GSQ: Highly-Accurate Low-Precision Scalar Quantization for LLMs via Gumbel-Softmax Sampling

    cs.CL 2026-04 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    GSQ applies a Gumbel-Softmax relaxation to learn discrete grid assignments in scalar quantization, closing most of the accuracy gap to vector methods like QTIP on Llama-3.1 models at 2-3 bits while using only symmetri...

  20. GSQ: Highly-Accurate Low-Precision Scalar Quantization for LLMs via Gumbel-Softmax Sampling

    cs.CL 2026-04 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    GSQ uses Gumbel-Softmax to optimize scalar quantization grids for LLMs, closing most of the accuracy gap to vector methods like QTIP at 2-3 bits per parameter while using symmetric scalar grids compatible with existin...

  21. CAGE: Curvature-Aware Gradient Estimation For Accurate Quantization-Aware Training

    cs.LG 2025-10 conditional novelty 6.0

    CAGE, a curvature-aware correction that adds the quantization error to the gradient, reduces loss in low-bit quantization-aware training, letting 3-bit CAGE-trained models match 4-bit baseline-trained models.

  22. AHCQ-SAM: Toward Accurate and Hardware-Compatible Post-Training Segment Anything Model Quantization

    cs.CV 2025-03 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    AHCQ-SAM introduces ACNR, HLUQ, CAG, and LNQ quantization techniques that deliver 15.2% mAP gain on 4-bit SAM-B and 14.01% J&F gain on 4-bit SAM2-Tiny versus prior PTQ methods.

  23. AWQ: Activation-aware Weight Quantization for LLM Compression and Acceleration

    cs.CL 2023-06 conditional novelty 6.0

    AWQ quantizes LLM weights to low bits by scaling salient channels based on activation statistics, outperforming prior methods on language, coding, math, and multi-modal benchmarks.

  24. Quantize with Confidence? An Empirical Study of Quantization for Code Generation

    cs.SE 2026-07 conditional novelty 5.0

    4-bit quantization of code LLMs mostly preserves pass@1, but AQLM matches or beats full precision while QuIP# degrades most on complex prompts; sensitivity is model-dependent.

  25. CAR-SAM: Cross-Attention Reconstruction for Post-Training Quantization of the Segment Anything Model

    cs.CV 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 5.0

    CAR-SAM introduces MatMul-Aware Compensation and Joint Cross-Attention Reconstruction to enable stable 4-bit post-training quantization of SAM, outperforming prior PTQ methods by 14.6% mAP on SAM-B and 6.6% on SAM-L.

  26. LoKA: Low-precision Kernel Applications for Recommendation Models At Scale

    cs.LG 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 5.0

    LoKA claims to make FP8 practical for large recommendation models via statistical probing, model adaptations, and accuracy-aware kernel dispatch.

  27. Colinearity Decay: Training Quantization-Friendly ViTs with Outlier Decay

    cs.CV 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 5.0

    Colinearity-Decay regularizer trains ViTs that maintain or improve full-precision accuracy while delivering higher accuracy after low-bit quantization on ImageNet and COCO tasks.

  28. BWTA: Accurate and Efficient Binarized Transformer by Algorithm-Hardware Co-design

    cs.LG 2026-04 unverdicted novelty 5.0

    BWTA achieves near full-precision accuracy on BERT and LLMs using binary weights and ternary activations, with 16-24x kernel speedups via specialized CUDA kernels.

  29. Local Stability and Gaussian Smoothing of Quantized Neural Networks

    cs.LG 2026-07 conditional novelty 4.0

    Gaussian averaging of quantized neural models yields C∞ surrogates with a local dimension-dependent error bound under a bounded oscillation condition, plus a CLT-based Gaussian envelope for binary perceptrons.

  30. Prune-Quantize-Distill: An Ordered Pipeline for Efficient Neural Network Compression

    cs.LG 2026-04 unverdicted novelty 4.0

    The prune-quantize-distill ordering produces a better accuracy-size-latency frontier on CIFAR-10/100 than any single technique or other orderings, with INT8 QAT providing the main runtime gain.

  31. Streaming Chain

    cs.CR 2026-04 conditional novelty 3.5

    Prune then INT8 QAT then KD yields a better measured accuracy–size–latency trade-off on CIFAR CNNs than any single stage, and stage order itself changes accuracy.

  32. Network Edge Inference for Large Language Models: Principles, Techniques, and Opportunities

    cs.DC 2026-04 unverdicted novelty 3.0

    A survey synthesizing challenges, system architectures, model optimizations, deployment methods, and resource management techniques for large language model inference at the network edge.