@inproceedings{wang-etal-2025-bitnet,
title = "Bitnet.cpp: Efficient Edge Inference for Ternary {LLM}s",
author = "Wang, Jinheng and
Zhou, Hansong and
Song, Ting and
Cao, Shijie and
Xia, Yan and
Cao, Ting and
Wei, Jianyu and
Ma, Shuming and
Wang, Hongyu and
Wei, Furu",
editor = "Che, Wanxiang and
Nabende, Joyce and
Shutova, Ekaterina and
Pilehvar, Mohammad Taher",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)",
month = jul,
year = "2025",
address = "Vienna, Austria",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2025.acl-long.457/",
doi = "10.18653/v1/2025.acl-long.457",
pages = "9305--9322",
ISBN = "979-8-89176-251-0",
abstract = "The advent of 1-bit large language models (LLMs), led by BitNet b1.58, has spurred interest in ternary LLMs. Despite this, research and practical applications focusing on efficient edge inference for ternary LLMs remain scarce. To bridge this gap, we introduce Bitnet.cpp, an inference system optimized for BitNet b1.58 and ternary LLMs. Given that mixed-precision matrix multiplication (mpGEMM) constitutes the bulk of inference time in ternary LLMs, Bitnet.cpp incorporates a novel mpGEMM library to facilitate sub-2-bits-per-weight, efficient and lossless inference. The library features two core solutions: Ternary Lookup Table (TL), which addresses spatial inefficiencies of previous bit-wise methods, and Int2 with a Scale (I2{\_}S), which ensures lossless edge inference, both enabling high-speed inference. Our experiments show that Bitnet.cpp achieves up to a 6.25x increase in speed over full-precision baselines and up to 2.32x over low-bit baselines, setting new benchmarks in the field. Additionally, we expand TL to element-wise lookup table (ELUT) for low-bit LLMs in the appendix, presenting both theoretical and empirical evidence of its considerable potential. Bitnet.cpp is publicly available at https://github.com/microsoft/BitNet/tree/paper, offering a sophisticated solution for the efficient and practical deployment of edge LLMs."
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<abstract>The advent of 1-bit large language models (LLMs), led by BitNet b1.58, has spurred interest in ternary LLMs. Despite this, research and practical applications focusing on efficient edge inference for ternary LLMs remain scarce. To bridge this gap, we introduce Bitnet.cpp, an inference system optimized for BitNet b1.58 and ternary LLMs. Given that mixed-precision matrix multiplication (mpGEMM) constitutes the bulk of inference time in ternary LLMs, Bitnet.cpp incorporates a novel mpGEMM library to facilitate sub-2-bits-per-weight, efficient and lossless inference. The library features two core solutions: Ternary Lookup Table (TL), which addresses spatial inefficiencies of previous bit-wise methods, and Int2 with a Scale (I2_S), which ensures lossless edge inference, both enabling high-speed inference. Our experiments show that Bitnet.cpp achieves up to a 6.25x increase in speed over full-precision baselines and up to 2.32x over low-bit baselines, setting new benchmarks in the field. Additionally, we expand TL to element-wise lookup table (ELUT) for low-bit LLMs in the appendix, presenting both theoretical and empirical evidence of its considerable potential. Bitnet.cpp is publicly available at https://github.com/microsoft/BitNet/tree/paper, offering a sophisticated solution for the efficient and practical deployment of edge LLMs.</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Bitnet.cpp: Efficient Edge Inference for Ternary LLMs
%A Wang, Jinheng
%A Zhou, Hansong
%A Song, Ting
%A Cao, Shijie
%A Xia, Yan
%A Cao, Ting
%A Wei, Jianyu
%A Ma, Shuming
%A Wang, Hongyu
%A Wei, Furu
%Y Che, Wanxiang
%Y Nabende, Joyce
%Y Shutova, Ekaterina
%Y Pilehvar, Mohammad Taher
%S Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)
%D 2025
%8 July
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C Vienna, Austria
%@ 979-8-89176-251-0
%F wang-etal-2025-bitnet
%X The advent of 1-bit large language models (LLMs), led by BitNet b1.58, has spurred interest in ternary LLMs. Despite this, research and practical applications focusing on efficient edge inference for ternary LLMs remain scarce. To bridge this gap, we introduce Bitnet.cpp, an inference system optimized for BitNet b1.58 and ternary LLMs. Given that mixed-precision matrix multiplication (mpGEMM) constitutes the bulk of inference time in ternary LLMs, Bitnet.cpp incorporates a novel mpGEMM library to facilitate sub-2-bits-per-weight, efficient and lossless inference. The library features two core solutions: Ternary Lookup Table (TL), which addresses spatial inefficiencies of previous bit-wise methods, and Int2 with a Scale (I2_S), which ensures lossless edge inference, both enabling high-speed inference. Our experiments show that Bitnet.cpp achieves up to a 6.25x increase in speed over full-precision baselines and up to 2.32x over low-bit baselines, setting new benchmarks in the field. Additionally, we expand TL to element-wise lookup table (ELUT) for low-bit LLMs in the appendix, presenting both theoretical and empirical evidence of its considerable potential. Bitnet.cpp is publicly available at https://github.com/microsoft/BitNet/tree/paper, offering a sophisticated solution for the efficient and practical deployment of edge LLMs.
%R 10.18653/v1/2025.acl-long.457
%U https://aclanthology.org/2025.acl-long.457/
%U https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2025.acl-long.457
%P 9305-9322
Markdown (Informal)
[Bitnet.cpp: Efficient Edge Inference for Ternary LLMs](https://aclanthology.org/2025.acl-long.457/) (Wang et al., ACL 2025)
ACL
- Jinheng Wang, Hansong Zhou, Ting Song, Shijie Cao, Yan Xia, Ting Cao, Jianyu Wei, Shuming Ma, Hongyu Wang, and Furu Wei. 2025. Bitnet.cpp: Efficient Edge Inference for Ternary LLMs. In Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers), pages 9305–9322, Vienna, Austria. Association for Computational Linguistics.