Microsoft's Phi-3 Mini boasts ChatGPT-level performance in an ultralight 3.8B parameter package

Why it matters: Advanced AI capabilities generally require massive cloud-hosted models with billions or even trillions of parameters. But Microsoft is challenging that with the Phi-3 Mini, a pint-sized AI powerhouse that can run on your phone or laptop while delivering performance rivaling some of the biggest language models out there.

Weighing in at just 3.8 billion parameters, Phi-3 Mini is the first of three compact new AI models Microsoft has in the works. It may be small, but Microsoft claims this little overachiever can punch way above its weight class, producing responses close to what you'd get from a model 10 times its size.

The tech giant plans to follow Mini up with Phi-3 Small (7 billion parameters) and Phi-3 Medium (14 billion) later on. But even the 3.8 billion-parameter Mini is shaping up to be a major player, according to Microsoft's numbers.

Those numbers ...