Andrej Karpathy, OpenAI co-founder and Eureka Labs boss, just unleashed nanochat. This open-source gem lets developers train a full ChatGPT-like model from scratch. Nanochat builds on its hit nanoGPT project. It packs an 8,000-line code repo that handles everything from tokenisers to inference. Karpathy boasts that you fire up a cloud GPU, run one script, and chat with your AI in four hours. As AI hobbyists and pros hunt easy ways to tweak large language models (LLMs), nanochat slashes barriers. Search “nanochat tutorial” spikes already—it's the hackable blueprint for 2025's DIY AI boom.
Nanochat Pipeline: From Training to Chat in Hours
Nanochat streamlines the entire LLM journey. It trains tokenisers in Rust, pretrains Transformers on FineWeb data, and fine-tunes with user chats and quizzes. Developers add supervised fine-tuning (SFT) or optional GRPO reinforcement learning (RL). Inference rocks with KV caching for speed. Users chat via CLI or a slick web UI. The tool spits out markdown reports on performance. Karpathy sees it as a “strong baseline” for his LLM101n class at Eureka Labs.
Scale your nanochat build by budget and time:
- Quick Start ($100, 4 Hours): Train on an 8x H100 GPU node. Get basic ChatGPT-style chats ready fast.
- Benchmark Buster (12 Hours): Push past GPT-2 CORE scores. Model handles simple talks and tasks.
- Pro Level ($1,000, 42 Hours): Unlock coherent answers, basic math, coding, and multiple-choice wins.
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Karpathy shared on X: “Boot up a cloud GPU box, run a single script, and in as little as 4 hours later you can talk to your own LLM in a ChatGPT-like web UI.” He calls nanochat the capstone for LLM101n, an undergrad course teaching AI builds. The repo stays minimal, readable, and fork-friendly. It could evolve into a research benchmark like nanoGPT.
This AI tool empowers students, tinkerers, and teams to own their AI. In a world of black-box models, this open-source push democratizes smarts. Karpathy's vision? Turn everyone into an AI builder. Test nanochat today—your custom bot awaits.
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