In July 2024, Meta announced the release of Llama 3.1, which is claimed to be…
2024
In July 2024, Meta announced the release of Llama 3.1, which is claimed to be the "world's largest and most capable openly available foundation model." How many parameters does the most capable version of Llama 3.1 have?
- A.
700 billion
- B.
100 billion
- C.
405 billion
- D.
200 billion
- E.
8 billion
Attempted by 4 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
Concept
A foundation model's scale is measured by its parameter count - the number of learned weights in the network. Within a single model family, vendors release several sizes, and the variant with the highest parameter count is the "most capable" flagship, while smaller variants trade capability for speed and lower hardware cost.
Application
Meta's Llama 3.1 family, announced on 23 July 2024, was released in three sizes: 8 billion, 70 billion, and 405 billion parameters. The flagship - the largest and most capable openly available variant - is Llama 3.1 405B, so the most capable version has 405 billion parameters.
Contrast
8 billion - the smallest Llama 3.1 variant, built for lightweight, on-device or low-cost use; not the flagship.
100 billion and 200 billion - round figures that match no released Llama 3.1 size.
700 billion - larger than any size Meta released for this family; it overstates the flagship's scale.
Hence the most capable Llama 3.1 model is the 405 billion-parameter variant.