Microsoft researchers say they've developed a hyper-efficient AI model that can run on CPUs

“There is a catch, however. Achieving that performance requires using Microsoft’s custom framework, bitnet.cpp, which only works with certain hardware at the moment.”

Microsoft’s BitNet model uses weights of -1, 0, and 1 and runs on an ordinary CPU. It beats similar small models on Microsoft’s own tests. It needs Microsoft’s own framework, which does not support GPUs. The efficiency comes with lock-in.