Microsoft has released the lightweight AI model Phi-3 Mini, the first of three smaller Phi models planned for this year, with 3.8 billion parameters. Trained on a smaller dataset compared to large language models like GPT-4, it is now available on Azure, Hugging Face, and Ollama. Here are the details…
Microsoft’s AI model Phi-3 features
Phi-3 Mini has the same capacity as large language models like GPT-3.5 but with less resource consumption. Microsoft also plans to release Phi-3 Small, with 7 billion parameters, and Phi-3 Medium, with 14 billion parameters.
Parameters indicate how many complex instructions a model can understand. Microsoft released Phi-2 in December and claimed that this model delivered performance similar to larger models like Llama 2.
Phi-3 outperforms Phi-2 and provides responses close to those of larger models. Eric Boyd, corporate vice president of Microsoft Azure AI Platform, mentioned that Phi-3 Mini, with its small form factor, is as capable as GPT-3.5.
Small AI models are generally more cost-effective and perform better on personal devices. Microsoft sees Phi-3 as an ideal solution for companies working with smaller datasets. Boyd explained that Phi-3 was trained with the concept that “children learn from books and simple sentence structures.”
Google continues its efforts in the field of artificial intelligence. Most recently, the company announced the Google Genie model.
This model builds on the foundation that Phi-1 focused on coding, and Phi-2 developed logical thinking skills. While Phi-3 may not have extensive general knowledge, it could be a good choice for companies with specific applications.
The need for smaller datasets and less computational power makes Phi-3 cost-effective for many companies. This is a step aligned with Microsoft’s strategy to develop smaller, lighter, and more accessible AI models.
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