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Small language models have become genuinely useful. Phi-3.5, Gemma 2, and Llama 3.2 fit on modest hardware and solve bounded tasks without reaching the cloud. A look at where they fit on the factory floor and when skipping the large model pays off.
Meta released Llama 3.2 with models as small as 1B and 3B parameters, built specifically to run on the device rather than in a datacentre. A look at what they can genuinely do, where the small sizes fall short, and how they compare with the alternatives.
Qualcomm, Intel and AMD Copilot+ processors have normalised the presence of an NPU in everyday PCs. A 40 TOPS NPU can run quantised Phi-3 Mini drawing just 5-10 W, versus 40-50 W for a laptop GPU doing the same task. What actually changes for running AI models locally, and when it is worth it.
