Deploying Large Language Models in Production: LLM Deployment Challenges

Deploying Large Language Models (LLMs) in production presents several challenges, particularly related to inference characteristics, memory requirements, and scheduling strategies. Users aiming to implement LLMs like GPT-4 or open-source alternatives such as Llama2 and Falcon in their own environments often face issues with security, privacy, and optimization for specific use cases. LLM inference is notably distinct due to its autoregressive nature, leading to high latency and variable input prompt sizes that complicate scheduling and computational efficiency. Memory optimization, crucial due to the extensive parameter size of models like GPT-4, involves techniques such as quantization and parallelism across GPUs to manage the substantial memory and bandwidth demands. Effective scheduling, including strategies like request-level, batch-level, and continuous batching, is essential to enhance user experience and hardware utilization, given the high and variable latency of LLMs. The article suggests that optimizing LLM deployment is a complex task influenced by the specific application, available hardware, and use case requirements.