How Large Language Models (LLMs) Work

Large language models (LLMs) are advanced AI systems capable of processing and generating human-like text. By analyzing vast amounts of data, LLMs understand language patterns and can predict the next word in a sequence, summarize content, or even engage in complex conversations. This powerful technology forms the backbone of applications ranging from chatbots to content creation tools. Learn about how these models operate, from the basics of tokenization and embedding to the more advanced concepts like attention mechanisms and hardware acceleration. Explore the essential components that make LLMs a key driver in artificial intelligence innovation.


What is AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) enables solving complex problems without explicit solutions. Instead of defining step-by-step instructions, AI models learn through training on examples, identifying patterns, and producing results. This approach is especially useful when creating algorithms for tasks where traditional programming methods fall short.
What is AI
What are LLMs
Large language models (LLMs) use trained numerical patterns to predict and generate text based on input. By processing vast amounts of text data, they identify likely word sequences and improve over time. Their computational power allows them to analyze and summarize information far beyond human capacity, making them invaluable tools.
What are LLMs
What is Tokenization in AI
Tokenization converts words into numbers for AI models. Instead of handling individual characters, tokenization maps entire words or word fragments to numerical equivalents, reducing computational complexity. This allows large language models to efficiently analyze and predict text while treating words as cohesive units, improving performance.
What is Tokenization in AI
What is Embedding in AI
Embedding represents the meaning of words as numerical vectors for AI models. Each vector encodes various attributes of a word (e.g., "cat" with four legs and fur) using directional values. This approach helps AI process not just words but their semantic relationships, enabling more nuanced understanding and responses.
What is Embedding in AI
What is Rotational Positional Embedding (RoPE) in AI
Rotary Positional Embedding (RoPE) encodes word order in text for AI models by rotating vectors representing words. Each rotation reflects a word's position in a sequence, preserving the distinction between phrases like "hello world" and "world hello." This method ensures positional context in language processing without altering vector magnitude.
What is Rotational Positional Embedding (RoPE) in AI
What is a Layer in AI
A layer in AI transforms input vectors into output vectors, representing word meanings. It involves normalization to standardize vector lengths, attention mechanisms using positional encoding, and matrix multiplications in linear units. These processes refine vectors to predict the next word effectively.
What is a Layer in AI
What is Attention in AI
Attention in large language models allows reasoning by comparing input vectors (word meanings) using queries, keys, and values. It calculates relevance scores, weights predictions, and generates output vectors to determine the meaning of subsequent words in context.
What is Attention in AI
What is a GLU (Gated Liner Unit) in AI
A Gated Linear Unit introduces gates to large language models, combining simpler mathematical operations (addition, multiplication) with advanced ones (e.g., exponentiation). It uses activation functions to enhance complexity, merging results to predict words more accurately in sequences.
What is a GLU (Gated Liner Unit) in AI
What is Normalization (RMS or RMSNorm) in AI
Root Mean Squared Normalization (RMSNorm) adjusts vectors to a manageable size, preventing overflow or underflow during computations. It involves squaring vector components, averaging, and square rooting, ensuring all vectors are normalized to the same length for consistent operations.
What is Normalization (RMS or RMSNorm) in AI
What is Unembedding in AI
Unembedding is the process of converting a list of numbers representing a word's meaning back into the word itself. The model compares the meaning to known words, assigns probabilities, and selects the most likely word based on similarity.
What is Unembedding in AI
What is Temperature in AI
Temperature in language models controls the number of words considered based on probability. A higher temperature increases creativity by considering more words, while a lower temperature reduces options, making the model more confident and deterministic in its word choices.
What is Temperature in AI
What is Model size and Parameter size in AI
The parameter size in language models refers to the number of numbers used to predict the next word. A larger parameter size allows for more accurate word representations and predictions, as more numbers are available to capture word meanings.
What is Model size and Parameter size in AI
What is Training in AI
Inference involves using predefined numbers in a model to predict the next word based on input, while training adjusts these numbers through computationally expensive processes to ensure correct predictions. Both processes are essential for accurate language model performance.
What is Training in AI
What is Hardware acceleration, GPUs, NPUs in AI
A GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) processes large sets of numbers simultaneously, improving performance for tasks like gaming graphics. Its parallel processing capabilities also benefit applications such as large language models, which require fast computation across billions of parameters.
What is Hardware acceleration, GPUs, NPUs in AI
What are Templates in AI
Large language models use text templates to convert raw input text into a format they recognize, ensuring better responses. These templates align the input with the model's trained environment, improving accuracy and consistency in output.
What are Templates in AI
The Architecture of LLama3
The process of working with large language models involves converting raw text into a familiar format, tokenizing it into words, embedding vectors to capture meaning, normalizing vector sizes, and applying attention mechanisms to generate context. These vectors are then refined through repeated transformations until the model produces a final output.
The Architecture of LLama3

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