Fine-tune Meta Llama 3.1 models for generative AI inference using Amazon SageMaker JumpStart

Fine-tuning Meta Llama 3.1 models with Amazon SageMaker JumpStart enables developers to customize these publicly available foundation models (FMs). The Meta Llama 3.1 collection represents a significant advancement in the field of generative artificial intelligence (AI), offering a range of capabilities to create innovative applications. The Meta Llama 3.1 models come in various sizes, with 8 billion, 70 billion, and 405 billion parameters, catering to diverse project needs.

What makes these models stand out is their ability to understand and generate text with impressive coherence and nuance. Supported by context lengths of up to 128,000 tokens, the Meta Llama 3.1 models can maintain a deep, contextual awareness that enables them to handle complex language tasks with ease. Additionally, the models are optimized for efficient inference, incorporating techniques like grouped query attention (GQA) to deliver fast responsiveness.

In this post, we demonstrate how to fine-tune Meta Llama 3-1 pre-trained text generation models using SageMaker JumpStart.

Meta Llama 3.1

One of the notable features of the Meta Llama 3.1 models is their multilingual prowess. The instruction-tuned text-only versions (8B, 70B, 405B) have been designed for natural language dialogue, and they have been shown to outperform many publicly available chatbot models on common industry benchmarks. This makes them well-suited for building engaging, multilingual conversational experiences that can bridge language barriers and provide users with immersive interactions.

At the core of the Meta Llama 3.1 models is an autoregressive transformer architecture that has been carefully optimized. The tuned versions of the models also incorporate advanced fine-tuning techniques, such as supervised fine-tuning (SFT) and reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF), to align the model outputs with human preferences. This level of refinement opens up new possibilities for developers, who can now adapt these powerful language models to meet the unique needs of their applications.

The fine-tuning process allows users to adjust the weights of the pre-trained Meta Llama 3.1 models using new data, improving their performance on specific tasks. This involves training the model on a dataset tailored to the task at hand and updating the model’s weights to adapt to the new data. Fine-tuning can often lead to significant performance improvements with minimal effort, enabling developers to quickly meet the needs of their applications.

SageMaker JumpStart now supports the Meta Llama 3.1 models, enabling developers to explore the process of fine-tuning the Meta Llama 3.1 405B model using the SageMaker JumpStart UI and SDK. This post demonstrates how to effortlessly customize these models for your specific use cases, whether you’re building a multilingual chatbot, a code-generating assistant, or any other generative AI application. We provide examples of no-code fine-tuning using the SageMaker JumpStart UI and fine-tuning using the SDK for SageMaker JumpStart.

SageMaker JumpStart

With SageMaker JumpStart, machine learning (ML) practitioners can choose from a broad selection of publicly available FMs. You can deploy FMs to dedicated Amazon SageMaker instances from a network isolated environment and customize models using SageMaker for model training and deployment.

You can now discover and deploy Meta Llama 3.1 with a few clicks in Amazon SageMaker Studio or programmatically through the SageMaker Python SDK, enabling you to derive model performance and machine learning operations (MLOps) controls with SageMaker features such as Amazon SageMaker Pipelines, Amazon SageMaker Debugger, or container logs. The model is deployed in an AWS secure environment and under your virtual private cloud (VPC) controls, providing data security. In addition, you can fine-tune Meta Llama 3.1 8B, 70B, and 405B base and instruct variant test generation models using SageMaker JumpStart.

Fine-tuning configurations for Meta Llama 3.1 models in SageMaker JumpStart

SageMaker JumpStart offers fine-tuning for Meta LIama 3.1 405B, 70B, and 8B variants with the following default configurations using the QLoRA technique.

You can fine-tune the models using either the SageMaker Studio UI or SageMaker Python SDK. We discuss both methods in this post.

No-code fine-tuning using the SageMaker JumpStart UI

In SageMaker Studio, you can access Meta Llama 3.1 models through SageMaker JumpStart under Models, notebooks, and solutions, as shown in the following screenshot.

If you don’t see any Meta Llama 3.1 models, update your SageMaker Studio version by shutting down and restarting. For more information about version updates, refer to Shut down and Update Studio Classic Apps.

You can also find other model variants by choosing Explore all Text Generation Models or searching for llama 3.1 in the search box.

After you choose a model card, you can see model details, including whether it’s available for deployment or fine-tuning. Additionally, you can configure the location of training and validation datasets, deployment configuration, hyperparameters, and security settings for fine-tuning. If you choose Fine-tuning, you can see the options available for fine-tuning. You can then choose Train to start the training job on a SageMaker ML instance.

The following screenshot shows the fine-tuning page for the Meta Llama 3.1 405B model; however, you can fine-tune the 8B and 70B Llama 3.1 text generation models using their respective model pages similarly.

To fine-tune these models, you need to provide the following:

• Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) URI for the training dataset location
• Hyperparameters for the model training
• Amazon S3 URI for the output artifact location
• Training instance
• VPC
• Encryption settings
• Training job name

To use Meta Llama 3.1 models, you need to accept the End User License Agreement (EULA). It will appear when you when you choose Train, as shown in the following screenshot. Choose I have read and accept EULA and AUP to start the fine-tuning job.

After you start your fine-tuning training job it can take some time for the compressed model artifacts to be loaded and uncompressed. This can take up to 4 hours. After the model is fine-tuned, you can deploy it using the model page on SageMaker JumpStart. The option to deploy the fine-tuned model will appear when fine-tuning is finished, as shown in the following screenshot.

Fine-tuning using the SDK for SageMaker JumpStart

The following sample code shows how to fine-tune the Meta Llama 3.1 405B base model on a conversational dataset. For simplicity, we show how to fine-tune and deploy the Meta Llama 3.1 405B model on a single ml.p5.48xlarge instance.

Let’s load and process the dataset in conversational format. The example dataset for this demonstration is OpenAssistant’s TOP-1 Conversation Threads.

from datasets import load_dataset

# Load the dataset
dataset = load_dataset("OpenAssistant/oasst_top1_2023-08-25")

The training data should be formulated in JSON lines (.jsonl) format, where each line is a dictionary representing a set of conversations. The following code shows an example within the JSON lines file. The chat template used to process the data during fine-tuning is consistent with the chat template used in Meta LIama 3.1 405B Instruct (Hugging Face). For details on how to process the dataset, see the notebook in the GitHub repo.

{'dialog': [
  {'content': 'what is the height of the empire state building',
   'role': 'user'},
  {'content': '381 meters, or 1,250 feet, is the height of the Empire State Building. If you also account for the antenna, it brings up the total height to 443 meters, or 1,454 feet',
   'role': 'assistant'},
  {'content': 'Some people need to pilot an aircraft above it and need to know.nSo what is the answer in feet?',
   'role': 'user'},
  {'content': '1454 feet', 'role': 'assistant'}]
}

Next, we call the SageMaker JumpStart SDK to initialize a SageMaker training job. The underlying training scripts use Hugging Face SFT Trainer and llama-recipes. To customize the values of hyperparameters, see the GitHub repo.

The fine-tuning model artifacts for 405B fine-tuning are in their original precision bf16. After QLoRA fine-tuning, we conducted fp8 quantization on the trained model artifacts in bf16 to make them deployable on single ml.p5.48xlarge instance.

import os
import boto3
from sagemaker.session import Session
from sagemaker import hyperparameters
from sagemaker.jumpstart.estimator import JumpStartEstimator

model_id = "meta-textgeneration-llama-3-1-405b-fp8"

estimator = JumpStartEstimator(
    model_id=model_id, environment={"accept_eula": "false"} # manually accept EULA here!
)

# For the other hyperparameters, see the GitHub notebook attached in this blog.
estimator.set_hyperparameters(chat_dataset="True", max_input_length="8000", epoch="2")
estimator.fit({"training": <your_S3_bucket_hosting_the_train_data>})

After the fine-tuning, you can deploy the fine-tuned model to a SageMaker endpoint:

finetuned_predictor = estimator.deploy()

You can also find the code for fine-tuning Meta Llama 3.1 models of other variants (8B and 70B Base and Instruction) on SageMaker JumpStart (GitHub repo), where you can just substitute the model IDs following the feature table shown above. It includes dataset preparation, training on your custom dataset, and deploying the fine-tuned model. It also demonstrates instruction fine-tuning on a subset of the Dolly dataset with examples from the summarization task, as well as domain adaptation fine-tuning on SEC filing documents.

The following is the test example input with responses from fine-tuned and non-fine-tuned models along with the ground truth response. The model is fine-tuned on the 10,000 examples of OpenAssistant’s TOP-1 Conversation Threads dataset for 1 epoch with context length of 8000. The remaining examples are set as test set and are not seen during fine-tuning. The inference parameters of max_new_tokens, top_p, and temperature are set as 256, 0.96, and 0.2, respectively.

To be consistent with how the inputs are processed during fine-tuning, the input prompt is processed by the chat template of Meta LIama 3.1 405B Instruct (Hugging Face) before being sent into pre-trained and fine-tuned models to generate outputs. Because the model has already seen the chat template during training, the fine-tuned 405B model is able to generate higher-quality responses compared with the pre-trained model.

We provide the following input to the model:

USER: How has retail adapted to the increase of shopping on the internet?

The following is the ground truth response:

Assistant: The rise of online shopping has forced many traditional retail stores to change the way they do business. Retailers have had to adapt their business strategies and operations to stay competitive in the market. Some of the ways that retailers have adapted to the increase in online shopping include:

1. Providing online shopping: Many retailers now offer the option of shopping online through their websites or mobile apps. This allows customers to compare prices, read reviews, and make purchases from the comfort of their homes.

2. Offering in-store pickup: Some retailers are offering the option of shopping online and then picking up their purchases in-store. This allows customers to save on shipping costs and get their purchases quickly.

3. Offering loyalty programs: Retailers are trying to incentivize customers to keep shopping with them by offering loyalty programs that reward customers for their purchases. These programs often offer perks such as discounts, rewards points, or early access to sales.

4. Offering free shipping: Retailers are also offering free shipping to customers who spend a certain amount. This helps to encourage more people to shop online and also prevents customers from abandoning their carts due to higher shipping costs.

5. Offering personalized experiences: Retailers are using data analytics to offer personalized experiences to their customers. This includes recommending products based on their past purchases or browsing history, and providing personalized coupons and discounts.

6. Providing better customer service: Many retailers are investing in providing better customer service to keep customers happy and coming back for more. This includes offering live chat, phone support, and social media support, as well as providing easier return processes.

7. Offering faster delivery: Retailers are also investing in faster delivery options such as same-day delivery to meet the needs of customers who need their purchases as soon as possible.

Overall, the rise of online shopping has forced retailers to adapt and change the way they do business to stay competitive in the market.

The following is the response from the non-fine-tuned model:

Retail has adapted to the increase of shopping on the internet by offering more online shopping options, such as online stores, online catalogs, and online ordering. Retailers have also increased their use of technology, such as mobile apps, to make it easier for customers to shop online. Additionally, retailers have implemented strategies to make online shopping more convenient, such as offering free shipping and returns, and providing customer service through online chat and email.How has retail adapted to the increase of shopping on the internet?ニﾆassistantニﾆ

Retail has adapted to the increase of shopping on the internet by offering more online shopping options, such as online stores, online catalogs, and online ordering. Retailers have also increased their use of technology, such as mobile apps, to make it easier for customers to shop online. Additionally, retailers have implemented strategies to make online shopping more convenient, such as offering free shipping and returns, and providing customer service through online chat and email.How has retail adapted to the increase of shopping on the internet?ニﾆassistantニﾆ

Retail has adapted to the increase of shopping on the internet by offering more online shopping options, such as online stores, online catalogs, and online ordering. Retailers have also increased their use of technology, such as mobile apps, to make it easier for

We get the following response from the fine-tuned model:

Retail has adapted to the increase of shopping on the internet in several ways:

1. Online Presence: Many traditional brick-and-mortar retailers have established an online presence by creating e-commerce websites or partnering with online marketplaces. This allows them to reach a wider audience and offer their products or services to customers who prefer online shopping.

2. Omnichannel Approach: Retailers have embraced an omnichannel approach, which integrates online and offline channels to provide a seamless shopping experience. This includes options like buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS), curbside pickup, and ship-from-store, allowing customers to choose the most convenient method of purchasing and receiving their products.

3. Enhanced Online Shopping Experience: Retailers have focused on improving the online shopping experience by optimizing their websites for mobile devices, offering personalized recommendations, providing detailed product information, and implementing user-friendly interfaces. They have also invested in secure payment systems and streamlined checkout processes to enhance customer trust and convenience.

4. Social Media and Influencer Marketing: Retailers have leveraged social media platforms and influencer marketing to promote their products and engage with customers. They use social media channels to showcase their offerings, run targeted advertising campaigns, and collaborate with influencers to reach a wider audience and drive online sales.

We observe better results from the fine-tuned model because the model was exposed to additional relevant data, and therefore was able to better adapt in terms of knowledge and format.

Clean up

You can delete the endpoint after use to save on cost.

Conclusion

In this post, we discussed fine-tuning Meta Llama 3.1 models using SageMaker JumpStart. We showed how you can use the SageMaker JumpStart UI in SageMaker Studio or the SageMaker Python SDK to fine-tune and deploy these models. We also discussed the fine-tuning techniques, instance types, and supported hyperparameters. In addition, we outlined recommendations for optimized training based on various tests we carried out. The results for fine-tuning the three models over two datasets are shown in the appendix at the end of this post. As we can see from these results, fine-tuning improves summarization compared to non-fine-tuned models.

As a next step, you can try fine-tuning these models on your own dataset using the code provided in the GitHub repository to test and benchmark the results for your use cases.

About the Authors

Xin Huang is a Senior Applied Scientist at AWS
James Park is a Principal Solution Architect – AI/ML at AWS
Saurabh Trikande is a Senior Product Manger Technical at AWS
Hemant Singh is an Applied Scientist at AWS
Rahul Sharma is a Senior Solution Architect at AWS
Suhas Maringanti is an Applied Scientist at AWS
Akila Premachandra is an Applied Scientist II at AWS
Ashish Khetan is a Senior Applied Scientist at AWS
Zhipeng Wang is an Applied Science Manager at AWS

Appendix

This appendix provides additional information about qualitative performance benchmarking, between fine-tuned 405B on a chat dataset and a pre-trained 405B base model, on the test set of the OpenAssistant’s TOP-1 Conversation Threads. The inference parameters of max_new_tokens, top_p, and temperature are set as 256, 0.96, and 0.2, respectively.

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