AirLLM claims 2.8T-parameter Kimi K3 runs on a single 4GB GPU, adds low-VRAM training
AirLLM is an open-source inference and training library that streams weights one layer at a time, keeping only a single layer resident on the GPU to cut VRAM use sharply. According to its repository, it runs 70B models on a single 4GB card without quantization, distillation or pruning, and reports running Kimi K3 (2.8T) in 3.72GB, Qwen3.8-Flash-Next (125B) in about 5.95GB and DeepSeek-V3 (671B) in roughly 12GB. Recent updates also add small-VRAM training, fine-tuning Qwen3.8-Flash-Next (125B) under 6GB and Qwen3.8-27B at about 2GB. All VRAM and training figures are the project's own reported measurements and have not been independently verified.
It pushes the hardware bar for running very large models down to consumer-grade VRAM, which could widen access for individual developers if the numbers reproduce.