Model reference · open weights

LFM3

NEW · this week LLMs LiquidAI Text gen 4 builds Its own licence terms 18k dl/mo

LFM3 is an open-weight language model from LiquidAI. LFM3-1.7B-GGUF (GGUF) weighs 1.1 GB; the smallest configuration that runs it is RTX 3060 12 GB.

For self-hosting, compare this build's requirements below with the GPU you plan to rent.

  • LFM3 is a 1.7B parameter text-generation model by LiquidAI, distributed in GGUF format for local inference on CPUs and GPUs.
  • It supports English, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Korean, among other languages.
  • The model is available under an "other" license and includes a Quantization-Aware Distillation checkpoint to maintain accuracy at Q4_0 quantization.

Summary of the LiquidAI/LFM3-1.7B-GGUF model card, 2026-10-29

What it is

Released byLiquidAI
Released2026-10-24
VRAM1.1 GB for the weights

What it runs on

Memory and cards for LFM3-1.7B-GGUF (GGUF)

1.1 GBweights, file size
651 MBruntime overhead, at least

How much memory each request adds isn't estimated yet for this architecture. The weights need at least the cards below, plus room for the context.

CardWeights alone
RTX 3060 12 GBfits
RTX 4060 Ti 16 GBfits
RTX 3090 24 GBfits
RTX 4090 24 GBfits
RTX 5090 32 GBfits
L40S 48 GBfits
A100 80 GBfits
H100 80 GBfits
RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell 96 GBfits
DGX Spark (GB10) 128 GB unifiedfits
H200 141 GBfits
B200 180 GBfits

Builds

Sizes, precisions & builds

BuildParamsPrecisionWeightsSmallest setup
LFM3-1.7B-GGUF (above) ↗
7 builds: Q4_0 1.0 GB … F16 3.5 GB
GGUF 1.1 GBRTX 3060 12 GB
LFM3-1.7B ↗ 1.7BBF16 3.5 GBRTX 3060 12 GB
LFM3-1.7B-NVFP4 ↗ 1.2BNVFP4 1.8 GBRTX 3060 12 GB
LFM3-1.7B-MLX-4bit ↗ 1.7BMLX 973 MBRTX 3060 12 GB

From the model card

What LiquidAI says about LFM3

Read the model card

src="https://huggingface.co/LiquidAI/LFM3-1.7B/resolve/main/assets/liquid-ai-banner.webp" alt="Liquid AI" style="width: 100%; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: block; margin: 0;" />

LFM3-1.7B-GGUF

GGUF version of LFM3-1.7B for local inference on CPUs and GPUs.

Find architecture and usage details in the original model card.

How to run LFM3-1.7B

Recommended sampling: temperature 0.1, top_k 50, repeat penalty 1.1. For math and science: temperature 1.0, top_p 0.95, top_k 20.

  • Llama.app (Use this model > Llama in the menu), for macOS and Windows. Requires llama.cpp version v0.8.0 or newer.
  • LM Studio (Use this model > LM Studio in the menu), for macOS, Windows and Linux. Requires LM Studio with llama.cpp engine 2.65.1 or newer.
  • Ollama (ollama run lfm3), for macOS. Requires Ollama version v0.40.12 or newer.

Use with llama.cpp

[!NOTE] Supported in llama.cpp b11960 (v0.8.0) and newer.

Add a quantization tag to pick a file.

llama-cli -hf LiquidAI/LFM3-1.7B-GGUF:Q4_K_M \
  --temp 0.1 --top-k 50 --repeat-penalty 1.1

For math and science, use --temp 1.0 --top-p 0.95 --top-k 20 instead. More options in the llama.cpp guide.

QAD Q4_0 GGUF

The Q4_0 build in this repository is the Quantization-Aware Distillation (QAD) checkpoint, LFM3-1.7B-QAD-Q4_0.gguf. It was trained to recover the accuracy lost to Q4_0 quantization.

Example usage with llama.cpp:

llama-cli -hf LiquidAI/LFM3-1.7B-GGUF \
  --hf-file LFM3-1.7B-QAD-Q4_0.gguf \
  --temp 0.1 --top-k 50 --repeat-penalty 1.1

Quoted from the model card on Hugging Face. The full card is behind the Hugging Face link above.

How it works

How language models work

Your prompttext / messagesTransformerattention over tokensNext-token loopgenerate + streamResponsetext · tool callsA language model reads your tokens and predicts the next one, again and again, streaming the reply back.
© 2026 AxForge · EU-hosted AI infrastructure Pricing Docs Trust Privacy Terms