LitGPT: High-Performance LLMs for Pretraining, Finetuning, and Deployment

LitGPT: High-Performance LLMs for Pretraining, Finetuning, and Deployment

Summary

LitGPT, by Lightning AI, is a comprehensive GitHub repository offering over 20 high-performance Large Language Models (LLMs). It provides robust recipes and tools to pretrain, finetune, and deploy these models at scale. Designed with minimal abstractions, LitGPT ensures blazing fast, minimal, and performant solutions for enterprise-grade AI development.

Repository Info

Updated on January 4, 2026
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Tags

llmlarge-language-modelsdeep-learningaiPythonfinetuningpretrainingdeployment

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Introduction

LitGPT, developed by Lightning AI, is a powerful GitHub repository designed to empower developers and researchers with state-of-the-art Large Language Models (LLMs). It provides over 20 high-performance LLMs, along with comprehensive recipes and tools to pretrain, finetune, and deploy them at scale. With a strong emphasis on minimal abstractions and full control, LitGPT ensures blazing fast, minimal, and performant solutions suitable for enterprise-scale AI applications.

Installation

Getting started with LitGPT is straightforward. You can install it using pip:

pip install 'litgpt[extra]'

For advanced options, including installing from source, refer to the official documentation.

Examples

LitGPT offers a simple yet powerful API for interacting with LLMs. Here's a quick example of loading an LLM and generating text:

from litgpt import LLM

llm = LLM.load("microsoft/phi-2")
text = llm.generate("Fix the spelling: Every fall, the family goes to the mountains.")
print(text)
# Corrected Sentence: Every fall, the family goes to the mountains.

Beyond simple inference, LitGPT provides a command-line interface (CLI) for advanced workflows. You can easily finetune, serve, or chat with models:

# Finetune a model
litgpt finetune microsoft/phi-2 --data JSON --data.json_path my_custom_dataset.json --out_dir out/custom-model

# Deploy the model
litgpt serve out/custom-model/final

# Chat with a model
litgpt chat microsoft/phi-2

Why Use LitGPT

LitGPT stands out for several reasons, making it an excellent choice for LLM development:

  • Enterprise Ready: Released under the Apache 2.0 license, it's suitable for unlimited enterprise use.
  • Developer Friendly: Features easy debugging due to no abstraction layers and single-file implementations.
  • Optimized Performance: Models are designed to maximize performance, reduce costs, and speed up training, incorporating state-of-the-art optimizations like Flash Attention v2 and multi-GPU support.
  • Proven Recipes: Comes with highly-optimized training and finetuning recipes, validated at enterprise scale.
  • Extensive Model Support: Offers over 20 LLMs, including popular ones like Llama, Gemma, Phi, and Mixtral, all implemented from scratch for maximum performance.
  • Advanced Features: Supports low-precision settings (FP16, BF16), quantization (4-bit, 8-bit, double quantization), and Parameter-Efficient Finetuning (PEFT) methods like LoRA, QLoRA, and Adapter.
  • Community and Research: LitGPT has powered significant AI projects, including TinyLlama and the NeurIPS 2023 LLM Efficiency Challenge, showcasing its robustness and impact.

Links

Explore LitGPT further through these official resources: