Estimate Complexity

Okay, let's estimate the total FLOPs (Floating Point Operations) required to train GPT-3 without relying on external searches. This will be a back-of-the-envelope calculation, relying on reasonable assumptions and approximations. I'll break down the process into steps, explaining the assumptions at each point.

1. GPT-3 Model Parameters & Architecture

• Parameters: GPT-3 has 175 billion parameters. This is a crucial starting point.
• Architecture: It's a Transformer model, which primarily consists of:
  • Attention Layers: The core of Transformers. These involve matrix multiplications and softmax operations.
  • Feed-Forward Networks (FFNs): Multi-layer perceptrons applied to each token's representation.
  • Embeddings: Mapping tokens to vector representations.
  • Layer Normalization: Stabilizes training.
  • Residual Connections: Help with gradient flow.

2. FLOPs per Parameter Update (Forward & Backward Pass)

This is the most challenging part to estimate without precise architectural details. We'll work from established research on Transformer FLOPs.

• General Rule of Thumb: A common rule of thumb for estimating FLOPs per parameter update in a Transformer is approximately 3-6x the number of parameters. This accounts for the matrix multiplications in attention and FFN layers, as well as other operations. Let's use a value of 5x as a middle ground. This is where the biggest uncertainty lies; different layers and implementations have different FLOPs/parameter ratios.
• FLOPs per Update: Therefore, FLOPs per parameter update ≈ 175 billion parameters * 5 = 875 billion FLOPs (8.75 x 10¹¹ FLOPs).

3. Training Dataset Size

• Estimated Tokens: GPT-3 was trained on a massive dataset. Estimates range widely, but a reasonable estimate is around 300 billion tokens. Let's use 300 billion tokens (3 x 10¹¹ tokens).
• Tokens per Batch: During training, tokens are processed in batches. GPT-3 used a batch size of 32,768 tokens. Let's use 32,768
• Number of Updates: Number of updates = (Total tokens) / (Tokens per batch) = (3 x 10¹¹) / 32,768 ≈ 9.16 billion updates (9.16 x 10⁹ updates).

4. Total FLOPs for Training

• Total FLOPs: (FLOPs per update) * (Number of updates) = (8.75 x 10¹¹ FLOPs/update) * (9.16 x 10⁹ updates) ≈ 8.01 x 10²¹ FLOPs.

5. Considerations and Refinements (Important!)

• Optimizer: The optimizer (e.g., Adam) introduces additional FLOPs. Adam typically requires 2-3x the FLOPs of the forward and backward passes (due to calculating and updating momentum and variance estimates). Let's conservatively add a factor of 2.
  • Total FLOPs (with Optimizer) ≈ 8.01 x 10²¹ FLOPs * 2 = 1.60 x 10²² FLOPs
• Data Loading and Preprocessing: Data loading, tokenization, and other preprocessing steps consume FLOPs, but are relatively minor compared to the model's computations. We'll ignore them for simplicity.
• Sparse Attention: GPT-3 used sparse attention mechanisms, which reduce the computational cost of the attention layers. This would reduce the FLOPs, but it's difficult to quantify without specifics.
• Mixed Precision Training: GPT-3 used mixed precision training (FP16), which can reduce FLOPs. This is more about reducing memory bandwidth than FLOPs themselves, but it can affect overall training time.
• Activation Checkpointing: This technique reduces memory usage by recomputing activations during the backward pass, trading computation for memory. This increases FLOPs.

Final Estimate & Range

Based on these assumptions and considerations:

• Base Estimate: Approximately 1.60 x 10²² FLOPs (160 ZettaFLOPs).
• Range: Given the uncertainties in the FLOPs per parameter update, the optimizer's overhead, and the impact of sparse attention and activation checkpointing, a reasonable range would be 1.0 x 10²² - 3.2 x 10²² FLOPs (100-320 ZettaFLOPs).

Key Assumptions Recap:

• 5x FLOPs per parameter update (a major source of uncertainty).
• 300 billion tokens in the training dataset.
• Batch size of 32,768
• Optimizer overhead of 2x.
• Neglecting data loading/preprocessing FLOPs.

Important Disclaimer: This is a rough estimate. The actual number of FLOPs could be significantly higher or lower depending on the specific implementation details and optimizations used to train GPT-3. The range reflects the uncertainties in these assumptions.