Jetfire: Efficient and Accurate Transformer Pretraining with INT8 Data Flow and Per-Block Quantization
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Abstract (arXiv)
Pretraining transformers are generally time-consuming. Fully quantized training (FQT) is a promising approach to speed up pretraining. However, most FQT methods adopt a quantize-compute-dequantize procedure, which often leads to suboptimal speedup and significant performance degradation when used in transformers due to the high memory access overheads and low-precision computations. In this work, we propose Jetfire, an efficient and accurate INT8 training method specific to transformers. Our method features an INT8 data flow to optimize memory access and a per-block quantization method to maintain the accuracy of pretrained transformers. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our INT8 FQT method achieves comparable accuracy to the FP16 training baseline and outperforms the existing INT8 training works for transformers. Moreover, for a standard transformer block, our method offers an end-to-end training speedup of 1.42x and a 1.49x memory reduction compared to the FP16 baseline. Our code is open sourced at https://github.com/thu-ml/Jetfire-INT8Training.
Key facts. Cited by 30 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 34 of its 48 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 19 Mar 2024.
Builds on
34 of 48 references.
References · 34
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22 more
- 2019Learned Step Size Quantizationcited by 604
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Citing papers per year: 2024: 6; 2025: 17; 2026: 7.
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- 2024SageAttention: Accurate 8-Bit Attention for Plug-and-play Inference Accelerationcited by 158
- 2025Optimizing Large Language Model Training Using FP4 Quantizationcited by 53
- 2025Quartet: Native FP4 Training Can Be Optimal for Large Language Modelscited by 37
- 2024COAT: Compressing Optimizer states and Activation for Memory-Efficient FP8 Trainingcited by 32
- 2025QuantSpec: Self-Speculative Decoding with Hierarchical Quantized KV Cachecited by 26
- 2025QuEST: Stable Training of LLMs with 1-Bit Weights and Activationscited by 21
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- 2025Oscillation-Reduced MXFP4 Training for Vision Transformerscited by 20
- 2025HALO: Hadamard-Assisted Lower-Precision Optimization for LLMscited by 14
- 2025Accurate INT8 Training Through Dynamic Block-Level Fallbackcited by 14
- 2024LoQT: Low-Rank Adapters for Quantized Pretrainingcited by 12
- 2025Low-Precision Training of Large Language Models: Methods, Challenges, and Opportunitiescited by 11
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- 2024Designing Large Foundation Models for Efficient Training and Inference: A Surveycited by 7
- 2025Beyond Outliers: A Study of Optimizers Under Quantizationcited by 6
- 2025Pushing the Limits of Low-Bit Optimizers: A Focus on EMA Dynamicscited by 5
- 2026STQuant: Spatio-Temporal Adaptive Framework for Optimizer Quantization in Large Multimodal Model Trainingcited by 4
- 20241-Bit FQT: Pushing the Limit of Fully Quantized Training to 1-bitcited by 3
- 2026ECO: Quantized Training without Full-Precision Master Weightscited by 3
- 2025pychop: Emulating Low-Precision Arithmetic in Numerical Methods and Neural Networkscited by 1
- 2025FALQON: Accelerating LoRA Fine-tuning with Low-Bit Floating-Point Arithmeticcited by 1
- 2025NuWa: Deriving Lightweight Class-Specific Vision Transformers for Edge Devicescited by 0
- 2025MoR: Mixture Of Representations For Mixed-Precision Trainingcited by 0
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- 2026A Target-Centric Survey of Quantization-Aware Trainingcited by 0
- 2026A Target-Centric Survey of Quantization-Aware Training30 Aug 2026
- 2026AGoQ: Activation and Gradient Quantization for Memory-Efficient Distributed Training of LLMs1 May 2026
- 2026STQuant: Spatio-Temporal Adaptive Framework for Optimizer Quantization in Large Multimodal Model Training8 Apr 2026
- 2026AdaHOP: Fast and Accurate Low-Precision Training via Outlier-Pattern-Aware Rotation2 Apr 2026
- 2026SNIP: An Adaptive Mixed Precision Framework for Subbyte Large Language Model Training1 Feb 2026
- 2026ECO: Quantized Training without Full-Precision Master Weights29 Jan 2026
- 2026Jet-RL: Enabling On-Policy FP8 Reinforcement Learning with Unified Training and Rollout Precision Flow20 Jan 2026
- 2025MoR: Mixture Of Representations For Mixed-Precision Training28 Dec 2025
- 2025FALQON: Accelerating LoRA Fine-tuning with Low-Bit Floating-Point Arithmetic28 Oct 2025
- 2025Beyond Outliers: A Study of Optimizers Under Quantization27 Sep 2025
- 2025Quartet: Native FP4 Training Can Be Optimal for Large Language Models20 May 2025
- 2025Low-bit Model Quantization for Deep Neural Networks: A Survey8 May 2025
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- 2025Low-Precision Training of Large Language Models: Methods, Challenges, and Opportunities2 May 2025
- 2025Pushing the Limits of Low-Bit Optimizers: A Focus on EMA Dynamics1 May 2025
- 2025pychop: Emulating Low-Precision Arithmetic in Numerical Methods and Neural Networks10 Apr 2025
- 2025NuWa: Deriving Lightweight Class-Specific Vision Transformers for Edge Devices4 Apr 2025
- 2025Accurate INT8 Training Through Dynamic Block-Level Fallback11 Mar 2025
- 2025SAGE: A Framework of Precise Retrieval for RAG3 Mar 2025
- 2025Oscillation-Reduced MXFP4 Training for Vision Transformers28 Feb 2025
- 2025GSQ-Tuning: Group-Shared Exponents Integer in Fully Quantized Training for LLMs On-Device Fine-tuning18 Feb 2025
- 2025QuEST: Stable Training of LLMs with 1-Bit Weights and Activations7 Feb 2025
- 2025QuantSpec: Self-Speculative Decoding with Hierarchical Quantized KV Cache5 Feb 2025
- 2025Optimizing Large Language Model Training Using FP4 Quantization28 Jan 2025
- 2025HALO: Hadamard-Assisted Lower-Precision Optimization for LLMs5 Jan 2025
- 2024COAT: Compressing Optimizer states and Activation for Memory-Efficient FP8 Training25 Oct 2024
- 2024SageAttention: Accurate 8-Bit Attention for Plug-and-play Inference Acceleration3 Oct 2024
- 2024Designing Large Foundation Models for Efficient Training and Inference: A Survey3 Sep 2024
- 20241-Bit FQT: Pushing the Limit of Fully Quantized Training to 1-bit26 Aug 2024
- 2024Exploring Quantization for Efficient Pre-Training of Transformer Language Models16 Jul 2024
- 2024LoQT: Low-Rank Adapters for Quantized Pretraining26 May 2024
- 2025SAGE: A Framework of Precise Retrieval for RAGcited by 8
- 2025SAGE: A Framework of Precise Retrieval for RAG3 Mar 2025
- 2025Optimizing Large Language Model Training Using FP4 Quantizationcited by 53
- 2025Quartet: Native FP4 Training Can Be Optimal for Large Language Modelscited by 37
- 2024COAT: Compressing Optimizer states and Activation for Memory-Efficient FP8 Trainingcited by 32
- 2025QuEST: Stable Training of LLMs with 1-Bit Weights and Activationscited by 21
- 2025GSQ-Tuning: Group-Shared Exponents Integer in Fully Quantized Training for LLMs On-Device Fine-tuningcited by 21
- 2025Oscillation-Reduced MXFP4 Training for Vision Transformerscited by 20
- 2025HALO: Hadamard-Assisted Lower-Precision Optimization for LLMscited by 14
- 2025Accurate INT8 Training Through Dynamic Block-Level Fallbackcited by 14
- 2024LoQT: Low-Rank Adapters for Quantized Pretrainingcited by 12
- 2025Low-Precision Training of Large Language Models: Methods, Challenges, and Opportunitiescited by 11
- 2025Low-bit Model Quantization for Deep Neural Networks: A Surveycited by 11
- 2024Exploring Quantization for Efficient Pre-Training of Transformer Language Modelscited by 10
12 most cited of 24 All 24 (JSON)
- 2026A Target-Centric Survey of Quantization-Aware Training30 Aug 2026
- 2026AGoQ: Activation and Gradient Quantization for Memory-Efficient Distributed Training of LLMs1 May 2026
- 2026AdaHOP: Fast and Accurate Low-Precision Training via Outlier-Pattern-Aware Rotation2 Apr 2026
- 2026SNIP: An Adaptive Mixed Precision Framework for Subbyte Large Language Model Training1 Feb 2026
- 2025MoR: Mixture Of Representations For Mixed-Precision Training28 Dec 2025
- 2025FALQON: Accelerating LoRA Fine-tuning with Low-Bit Floating-Point Arithmetic28 Oct 2025
- 2025Beyond Outliers: A Study of Optimizers Under Quantization27 Sep 2025
- 2025Quartet: Native FP4 Training Can Be Optimal for Large Language Models20 May 2025
- 2025Low-bit Model Quantization for Deep Neural Networks: A Survey8 May 2025
- 2025Low-Precision Training of Large Language Models: Methods, Challenges, and Opportunities2 May 2025
- 2025Pushing the Limits of Low-Bit Optimizers: A Focus on EMA Dynamics1 May 2025
- 2025pychop: Emulating Low-Precision Arithmetic in Numerical Methods and Neural Networks10 Apr 2025
12 newest of 24 All 24 (JSON)