TinyGrad is a lightweight, efficient, and adaptable gradient descent library that is revolutionizing the way we train machine learning models. TinyGrad is ideal for researchers and developers who want to build better machine learning models without sacrificing performance. TinyGrad is extremely simple to use, making it an excellent alternative for anybody looking to get started with machine learning.
Table of Contents
What is Tinygrad?
TinyGrad is a machine learning gradient descent library that is lightweight, efficient, and adaptable. It is written in C++ and has had performance and memory utilization optimized. TinyGrad also works with a variety of optimization algorithms, such as Adam, Adagrad, and RMSProp.
TinyGrad is simple to use. It offers a straightforward API that is simple to understand and apply. TinyGrad also includes a number of examples that demonstrate how to use the library to train various types of machine learning models.
TinyGrad is a strong tool for training machine learning models with great accuracy and speed. TinyGrad is ideal for researchers and developers looking to improve their machine learning models.
How it works?
TinyGrad employs a basic yet powerful approach known as gradient descent. Gradient descent is a technique for calculating the minimum of a function. The loss function is the function that we are attempting to minimize in the context of machine learning. The loss function measures how well the model performs on training data.
Gradient descent works by starting with a random guess for the model’s parameters. The parameters are then updated periodically in the direction of the loss function’s negative gradient. The negative gradient indicates which way we should alter the parameters to minimize the loss.
employs a number of strategies to improve the efficiency of gradient descent. For instance, it employs a method known as adaptive learning rates to automatically change the size of the steps it takes. This helps to guarantee that the model converges to the loss function’s minimum as rapidly as feasible.
TinyGrad is a strong tool for training machine learning models with great accuracy and speed. It is an excellent alternative for academics and developers looking to improve their machine learning models.
Here are some of the steps involved in how TinyGrad works:
- Define the model: The first step is to define the model to be trained. The model architecture, loss function, and optimizer must all be specified.
- Initialize the parameters: The next step is to initialize the model’s parameters. This can be done at random or with a pre-trained model.
- Train the model: The model must be trained as the final stage. This is accomplished by continually updating the model’s parameters in the direction of the loss function’s negative gradient.
TinyGrad has several features that make it simple to train machine learning models. These characteristics are as follows:
- A simple API that is easy to learn and use.
- A wide range of optimization algorithms
- Support for different types of machine learning models
- A large and active community
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Installation
To install Tinygrad, you have two options:
Option 1: Installation via pip
python3 -m pip install git+https://[email protected]/geohot/tinygrad.git
Option 2: Manual installation
1. Clone the Tinygrad repository from GitHub:
git clone https://github.com/geohot/tinygrad.git
2. Navigate to the cloned directory:
cd tinygrad
3. Install Tinygrad using pip:
python3 -m pip install -e .
These commands will install Tinygrad on your system. Make sure you have Python 3 and pip installed before proceeding with the installation.
Tinygrad: A Matmul Example
Tinygrad prioritizes usability and simplicity over speed enhancements. While it cannot compete with more mature and tuned deep learning frameworks in terms of performance, it can still perform pretty well for small to medium-sized models and datasets.
Tinygrad demonstrates its ability to do matrix multiplication (matmul) quickly utilizing lazy evaluation and operation fusion in the accompanying example. Tinygrad eliminates needless calculations and memory allocations by utilizing laziness and streamlining the execution flow, leading in enhanced performance.
You may run the following command to see how Tinygrad’s matmul operation performs.
DEBUG=3 OPTLOCAL=1 python3 -c "from tinygrad.tensor import Tensor;
N = 1024; a, b = Tensor.randn(N, N), Tensor.randn(N, N);
c = (a.reshape(N, 1, N) * b.permute(1,0).reshape(1, N, N)).sum(axis=2);
print((c.numpy() - (a.numpy() @ b.numpy())).mean())"
The code above produces two random matrices of size 1024×1024, multiplies them, then compares the results to the numpy implementation. The performance of your system will vary based on the hardware and the particular optimizations available.
You may optionally set the DEBUG flag to DEBUG=4 to inspect the produced code, which provides further insight into Tinygrad’s processes.
Tinygrad’s primary focus is on simplicity and teaching value, rather than being a high-performance deep learning library. More optimized frameworks, like as TensorFlow or PyTorch, are often preferred for production-level applications or large-scale models.
Neural networks
The tinygrad
library is characterized as a small autograd tensor library that provides basic neural network capabilities.
from tinygrad.tensor import Tensor
import tinygrad.nn.optim as optim
This part imports the tinygrad
library’s required components, such as the Tensor class for constructing and manipulating tensors and the optim
module for optimizers.
class TinyBobNet:
def __init__(self):
self.l1 = Tensor.uniform(784, 128)
self.l2 = Tensor.uniform(128, 10)
def forward(self, x):
return x.dot(self.l1).relu().dot(self.l2).log_softmax()
TinyBobNet
, a basic neural network model, is defined here. The model comprises two layers, l1 and l2, which are represented by Tensor
objects with random uniform values. The forward
approach executes a network forward pass, using dot product, ReLU activation, dot product again, and lastly log softmax activation.
model = TinyBobNet()
optim = optim.SGD([model.l1, model.l2], lr=0.001)
A TinyBobNet
model instance is generated, and an optimizer is started. Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) from the tinygrad.nn.optim
module is used in this scenario, using the parameters model.l1
and model.l2
to optimize and a learning rate of 0.001.
out = model.forward(x)
loss = out.mul(y).mean()
optim.zero_grad()
loss.backward()
optim.step()
The forward pass involves running the input data x
through the model and creating an output out
. The loss is then computed by multiplying the output by the target y
and taking the mean. The optimizer’s gradient is reset with zero_grad()
, the loss is backpropagated through the network with backward()
, and the parameters are updated with step()
.
ImageNet inference
This is an example of utilizing the tinygrad
library to do inference using the EfficientNet model. It shows how to send an image to the model and have it determine what is in the image.
To run the code, type the following command into your terminal:
python3 examples/efficientnet.py <image_path>
Replace <image_path>
with the path or URL of the image you want to classify.
python3 examples/efficientnet.py https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/hen-picture-id831791190
This example demonstrates how to use the EfficientNet model provided by tinygrad
for image classification tasks. It shows how to pass an image to the model and obtain predictions about the contents of the image.
Tinygrad supports LLaMA
After placing the weights in the weights/LLaMA
directory, you may use this script to communicate with Stacy.
To run the script, type the following command into your terminal:
python3 examples/llama.py
Tinygrad supports GANs
Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) are supported by the tinygrad
library. The tinygrad
library’s examples/mnist_gan.py
script provides an example implementation of a GAN for producing MNIST digits.
To run the script, type the following command into your terminal:
python3 examples/mnist_gan.py

Tinygrad supports Stable Diffusion
If your tinygrad
library supports Stable Diffusion and you have the relevant weights downloaded, you may use it by running the stable_diffusion.py
script.
To run the script, open a terminal and enter the following command:
python3 examples/stable_diffusion.py
Check that you have all of the dependencies needed for the script to run correctly. Additionally, ensure that the weights for Stable Diffusion have been obtained and stored in the weights/
directory.
This article is to help you learn about Tinygrad. We trust that it has been helpful to you. Please feel free to share your thoughts and feedback in the comment section below.