Kog open-sourced Laneformer 2B (2.3B parameters), an instruction-tuned coding model designed for decoding speed over raw benchmark score. These speeds are roughly 10x faster than typical vLLM throughput for a model of this size.
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Decode speed on 8× AMD MI300X | 3,000 output tokens/s per request (FP16, batch size 1) |
| Decode speed on 8× NVIDIA H200 | 2,100 output tokens/s per request (FP16, batch size 1) |
| HumanEval+ (greedy) | 45.1% |
| MBPP+ (greedy) | 51.6% |
| Method | No quantization, no speculative decoding, no pruning |
Kog's public tech preview runs on a 2B model. The company is now racing to scale its techniques:
ZML — Also a French AI startup (endorsed by Yann LeCun), ZML takes a different approach: it released LLMD, a free inference engine that allows many open-source models to run across a wide variety of chips (NVIDIA, AMD, Google TPU, Apple Metal, Intel Arc) using a unified compiler-based approach. ZML prioritizes hardware portability and multi-chip support rather than extreme single-request latency. Kog, by contrast, is purpose-built for maximum latency reduction on specific high-end datacenter GPUs (MI300X, H200) through deep, hardware-specific optimization.
Cerebras — Uses a fundamentally hardware-first strategy: the Wafer-Scale Engine (WSE-3), a massive single chip that eliminates the need for multi-GPU communication. Cerebras achieves ~2,100 tokens/s on Llama 3.1 70B (batch 1) on its WSE-3 hardware — notably, that speed is for a 70B model, not a 2B model.
| Dimension | Kog | Cerebras |
|---|---|---|
| Approach | Software-only on standard GPUs | Custom wafer-scale hardware |
| Best demo | 3,000 tok/s on a 2B model | ~2,100 tok/s on 70B model |
| Latency claim | Targeting 30x on frontier models | ~4x vs H100 on 70B models |
| Hardware cost | Uses existing GPU infrastructure | Requires proprietary CS-3 systems |
| Maturity | Early-stage (tech preview, 2B only) | Production-grade for multiple open models |
Key caveat: Kog's 3,000 tok/s result is on a 2.3B model — an order of magnitude smaller than the 70B models Cerebras serves at comparable speeds. Kog has yet to demonstrate its 30x claim at scale. The company's next milestone (10x on a large industry model) will be the critical proof point.