Model reference · open weights

PowerLM

LLMs ibm-research Text gen 1 build Open weights 52k dl/mo

PowerLM is an open-weight language model from IBM. PowerLM-3b (FP32) weighs 7.0 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.

  • PowerLM-3B is a 3.5B parameter text-generation model developed by IBM and published as ibm-research/PowerLM-3b.
  • It is trained using the Power learning rate scheduler on a mix of open-source and proprietary datasets.
  • The model supports a context length of 4096 tokens and is available under the Apache-2.0 license.

Summary of the ibm-research/PowerLM-3b model card, 2026-10-01

What it is

Released byIBM
Released2024-08-14
Parameters3.5B
VRAM7.0 GB for the weights

What it runs on

Memory and cards for PowerLM-3b (FP32)

7.0 GBweights, file size
369 MBcache per 1K tokens
593 MBruntime overhead, at least
4,096 tokenscontext max
CardRequests at onceContext maxMemory
4K each
RTX 3060 12 GB2all 4K11.6 GB
RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB5all 4K15.4 GB
RTX 3090 24 GB10all 4K23.4 GB
RTX 4090 24 GB10all 4K23.4 GB
RTX 5090 32 GB15all 4K31.0 GB
L40S 48 GB24all 4K44.0 GB
A100 80 GB46all 4K78.2 GB
H100 80 GB44all 4K78.1 GB
RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell 96 GB55all 4K93.8 GB
DGX Spark (GB10) 128 GB unified64all 4K107 GB
H200 141 GB84all 4K138 GB
B200 180 GB109all 4K176 GB
2× RTX 3060 12 GB
tensor parallel
9all 4K11.6 GB a card
2× RTX 4060 Ti 16 GB
tensor parallel
14all 4K15.4 GB a card
Memory needed at each load
Requests at once4K tokens each
19.1 GB
515.2 GB
819.7 GB
1631.8 GB
3255.9 GB
64104 GB

One card, with vLLM's small-card settings.

From the model card

What IBM says about PowerLM

Read the model card

Model Summary

PowerLM-3B is a 3B state-of-the-art small language model trained with the Power learning rate scheduler. It is trained on a mix of open-source and proprietary datasets. PowerLM-3B has shown promising results compared to other models in the size categories across various benchmarks, including natural language multi-choices, code generation, and math reasoning. Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.13359

Usage

Note: Requires installing HF transformers from source.

Generation

This is a simple example of how to use PowerLM-3b model.

import torch
from transformers import AutoModelForCausalLM, AutoTokenizer
device = "cuda" # or "cpu"
model_path = "ibm/PowerLM-3b"
tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained(model_path)
# drop device_map if running on CPU
model = AutoModelForCausalLM.from_pretrained(model_path, device_map=device)
model.eval()
# change input text as desired
prompt = "Write a code to find the maximum value in a list of numbers."
# tokenize the text
input_tokens = tokenizer(prompt, return_tensors="pt")
# transfer tokenized inputs to the device
for i in input_tokens:
    input_tokens[i] = input_tokens[i].to(device)
# generate output tokens
output = model.generate(**input_tokens, max_new_tokens=100)
# decode output tokens into text
output = tokenizer.batch_decode(output)
# loop over the batch to print, in this example the batch size is 1
for i in output:
    print(i)

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

Benchmarks

Reported results

As published on the model card: the maker's own numbers, not measured by AxForge.

TaskDatasetMetricScore
text-generationARCaccuracy-norm60.500
text-generationBoolQaccuracy72
text-generationHellaswagaccuracy-norm74.600
text-generationOpenBookQAaccuracy-norm43.600
text-generationPIQAaccuracy-norm79.900
text-generationWinograndeaccuracy-norm70
text-generationMMLU (5 shot)accuracy49.200
text-generationGSM8k (5 shot)accuracy34.900
text-generationmath (4 shot)accuracy15.200
text-generationhumanevalpass@126.800
text-generationMBPPpass@133.600
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