Develop Local GenAI LLM Application with OpenVINO

Think Different - Dhiraj Patra
5 min readAug 15, 2024

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intel OpenVino framework

OpenVINO can help accelerate the processing of your local LLM (Large Language Model) application generation in several ways.

OpenVINO can significantly aid in developing LLM and Generative AI applications on a local system like a laptop by providing optimized performance and efficient resource usage. Here are some key benefits:

1. Optimized Performance: OpenVINO optimizes models for Intel hardware, improving inference speed and efficiency, which is crucial for running complex LLM and Generative AI models on a laptop.

2. Hardware Acceleration: It leverages CPU, GPU, and other accelerators available on Intel platforms, making the most out of your laptop’s hardware capabilities.

3. Ease of Integration: OpenVINO supports popular deep learning frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch, and ONNX, allowing seamless integration and conversion of pre-trained models into the OpenVINO format.

4. Edge Deployment: It is designed for edge deployment, making it suitable for running AI applications locally without relying on cloud infrastructure, thus reducing latency and dependency on internet connectivity.

5. Model Optimization: The Model Optimizer in OpenVINO helps in transforming and optimizing pre-trained models into an Intermediate Representation (IR) that can be efficiently executed by the Inference Engine.

6. Pre-trained Models: OpenVINO provides a model zoo with pre-trained models, including those for natural language processing and computer vision, which can be fine-tuned for specific applications.

By using OpenVINO, you can develop and run LLM and Generative AI applications efficiently on your laptop, making it feasible to prototype and experiment with AI models locally.

Optimized Inference: OpenVINO provides an optimized inference engine that can take advantage of various hardware platforms, including CPUs, GPUs, and VPUs. This optimization can lead to faster processing times for your LLM application.

Model Optimization: OpenVINO includes tools to optimize your LLM model for better performance, such as model quantization, pruning, and knowledge distillation. These optimizations can reduce the computational requirements of your model, leading to faster processing times.

Hardware Acceleration: OpenVINO supports various hardware accelerators, including Intel’s Deep Learning Boost (DL Boost) and OpenVINO’s own hardware accelerator, the Intel Neural Stick. These accelerators can significantly speed up the processing of your LLM application.

Parallel Processing: OpenVINO allows you to take advantage of multi-core processors and parallel processing, which can significantly speed up the processing of your LLM application.

Streamlined Processing: OpenVINO provides a streamlined processing pipeline that can help reduce overhead and improve overall processing efficiency.

To leverage OpenVINO for faster LLM application generation, you can:

Use OpenVINO’s Model Optimizer: Optimize your LLM model using OpenVINO’s Model Optimizer tool.

Integrate OpenVINO’s Inference Engine: Integrate OpenVINO’s Inference Engine into your application to take advantage of optimized inference.

Utilize Hardware Accelerators: Use hardware accelerators like Intel’s DL Boost or the Intel Neural Stick to accelerate processing.

Parallelize Processing: Use OpenVINO’s parallel processing capabilities to take advantage of multi-core processors.

By applying these techniques, you can significantly accelerate the processing of your local LLM application generation using OpenVINO.

OpenVINO is not exclusive to Intel processors, but it’s optimized for Intel hardware. You can install OpenVINO on non-Intel processors, including AMD and ARM-based systems. However, the level of optimization and support may vary.

Initially, OpenVINO was designed to take advantage of Intel’s hardware features, such as:

Intel CPUs: OpenVINO is optimized for Intel Core and Xeon processors.

Intel Integrated Graphics: OpenVINO supports Intel Integrated Graphics, including Iris and UHD Graphics.

Intel Neural Stick: OpenVINO is optimized for the Intel Neural Stick, a USB-based deep learning accelerator.

However, OpenVINO can still be installed and run on non-Intel processors, including:

AMD CPUs: You can install OpenVINO on AMD-based systems, but you might not get the same level of optimization as on Intel CPUs.

ARM-based systems: OpenVINO can be installed on ARM-based systems, such as those using Raspberry Pi or other ARM-based CPUs.

NVIDIA GPUs: Although OpenVINO is not specifically optimized for NVIDIA GPUs, you can still use OpenVINO on systems with NVIDIA GPUs. However, you might need to use the NVIDIA CUDA toolkit and cuDNN library to leverage GPU acceleration.

To install OpenVINO on a non-Intel processor, ensure you meet the system requirements and follow the installation instructions for your specific platform. You might need to use a compatible backend, such as OpenCV or TensorFlow, to leverage OpenVINO’s capabilities.

Keep in mind that while OpenVINO can run on non-Intel processors, the performance and optimization level might vary. If you’re unsure about compatibility or performance, you can consult the OpenVINO documentation or seek support from the OpenVINO community.

OpenVINO and CUDA serve similar purposes but are tailored to different hardware platforms and have distinct features:

OpenVINO

1. Target Hardware: Primarily optimized for Intel hardware, including CPUs, integrated GPUs, VPUs (Vision Processing Units), and FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays).

2. Optimization: Focuses on optimizing inference performance across a wide range of Intel architectures.

3. Ease of Use: Provides easy model conversion from popular deep learning frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch, and ONNX.

4. Flexibility: Supports heterogeneous execution, allowing models to run across multiple types of Intel hardware simultaneously.

5. Pre-trained Models: Offers a model zoo with pre-trained models that can be fine-tuned and deployed easily.

6. Edge Deployment: Designed with edge AI applications in mind, making it suitable for running AI workloads on local devices without relying on cloud resources.

CUDA

1. Target Hardware: Optimized for NVIDIA GPUs, including desktop, laptop, server, and specialized AI hardware like the Jetson series.

2. Performance: Leverages the parallel processing capabilities of NVIDIA GPUs to accelerate computation-heavy tasks, including deep learning training and inference.

3. Programming Flexibility: Provides a comprehensive parallel computing platform and programming model that developers can use to write highly optimized code for NVIDIA GPUs.

4. Deep Learning Frameworks: Strong integration with deep learning frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch, and MXNet, often with specific GPU optimizations.

5. Training and Inference: Widely used for both training and inference of deep learning models, offering high performance and scalability.

6. Community and Ecosystem: A large developer community and extensive ecosystem of libraries and tools designed to work with CUDA.

Key Differences

1. Hardware Dependency: OpenVINO is tailored for Intel hardware however it can run other CPU as well as I described in details above, while CUDA is specific to NVIDIA GPUs.

2. Optimization Goals: OpenVINO focuses on inference optimization, especially for edge devices, whereas CUDA excels in both training and inference, primarily in environments with NVIDIA GPUs.

3. Deployment: OpenVINO is well-suited for local and edge deployment on a variety of Intel devices, while CUDA is best utilized where high-performance NVIDIA GPUs are available, typically in data centers or high-performance computing setups.

In summary, OpenVINO is ideal for optimizing AI workloads on Intel-based systems, especially for inference on local and edge devices. CUDA, on the other hand, is optimized for high-performance AI tasks on NVIDIA GPUs, suitable for both training and inference in environments where NVIDIA hardware is available.

More details and how to install you can find here

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Think Different - Dhiraj Patra

I am a Software architect for AI, ML, IoT microservices cloud applications. Love to learn and share. https://dhirajpatra.github.io