lm-sys/fastchat

FastChat: Empowering Conversational AI Development

FastChat is a comprehensive open-source platform designed to revolutionize the development and deployment of large language model (LLM) chatbots. With its robust set of tools and features, FastChat enables researchers and developers to train, serve, and evaluate cutting-edge conversational AI systems.

Key Capabilities

At the core of FastChat's functionality are two primary components:

• Training and Evaluation Framework: FastChat provides the necessary code and infrastructure to train and assess state-of-the-art models like Vicuna and MT-Bench. This allows developers to create and refine their own custom chatbot models.
• Distributed Serving System: The platform includes a scalable system for deploying multiple models simultaneously. It features a user-friendly web interface and OpenAI-compatible RESTful APIs, making it easy to integrate chatbots into various applications.

Powering Chatbot Arena

FastChat is the technology behind Chatbot Arena (lmarena.ai), a popular platform that has processed over 10 million chat requests for more than 70 different LLMs. This real-world application demonstrates FastChat's ability to handle high-volume, multi-model deployments at scale.

Advancing LLM Research

The Chatbot Arena has also made significant contributions to LLM research by collecting over 1.5 million human votes from side-by-side comparisons of different models. This data has been used to compile an online Elo leaderboard, providing valuable insights into the relative performance of various LLMs.

Flexible Model Support

FastChat is designed to work with a wide range of models, including:

• Llama 2
• Vicuna
• Alpaca
• ChatGLM
• Dolly
• FastChat-T5
• And many more

This flexibility allows developers to experiment with different architectures and find the best fit for their specific use case.

Deployment Options

FastChat offers multiple deployment methods to suit various hardware configurations:

• Single GPU: For smaller-scale deployments or testing
• Multiple GPUs: Leveraging model parallelism for improved performance
• CPU-only: For environments without GPU acceleration
• Apple Silicon: Optimized for Macs with M1/M2 chips
• Intel XPU: Support for Intel Data Center and Arc A-Series GPUs
• Ascend NPU: Compatible with Huawei's AI accelerators

Advanced Features

FastChat includes several advanced features to enhance model performance and deployment flexibility:

• 8-bit Compression: Reduce memory usage by up to 50% with minimal quality loss
• ExLlama V2 Support: Integration with high-performance inference engines
• GPTQ and AWQ: 4-bit quantization options for further optimization
• Cloud Deployment: Easy scaling with SkyPilot integration for multi-cloud support

Developer-Friendly APIs

FastChat provides a range of API options to simplify integration and development:

• OpenAI-Compatible REST API: Easily switch from OpenAI to local deployments
• Hugging Face Generation API: Seamless integration with the popular ML framework
• LangChain Support: Build complex AI applications with LLM integration

Evaluation and Fine-tuning

FastChat includes tools for comprehensive model evaluation and customization:

• MT-bench: A challenging multi-turn question set for rigorous chatbot assessment
• Fine-tuning Support: Detailed instructions and code for adapting models to specific domains or tasks
• LoRA Integration: Efficient fine-tuning with Low-Rank Adaptation techniques

Open-Source Collaboration

As an open-source project, FastChat encourages community contributions and research collaborations. The platform's flexibility and comprehensive toolset make it an ideal foundation for advancing the field of conversational AI.

Whether you're a researcher exploring new LLM architectures, a developer building production-ready chatbot applications, or an AI enthusiast experimenting with language models, FastChat provides the tools and infrastructure to support your goals in the exciting world of conversational AI.