ONNX Runtime for Training



ONNX Runtime can be used to accelerate both large model training and on-device training.


Large Model Training



ORTModule accelerates training of large transformer based PyTorch models. The training time and training cost is reduced with a few lines of code change. It is built on top of highly successful and proven technologies of ONNX Runtime and ONNX format. It is composable with technologies like DeepSpeed and accelerates pre-training and finetuning for state of the art LLMs. It is integrated in the Hugging Face Optimum library which provides an ORTTrainer API to use ONNX Runtime as the backend for training acceleration.


- model = build_model() # User's PyTorch model
+ model = ORTModule(build_model())


Get started with large model training →

Benefits

Faster training

Optimized kernels and memory optimizations provides >1.5X speed up in training time.

Flexible & extensible hardware support

The same model and API works with NVIDIA and AMD GPUs, and the extensible "execution provider" architecture allow you to plug-in custom operators, optimizer and hardware accelerators.

Part of the PyTorch ecosystem

ONNX Runtime Training is available via the torch-ort package as part of the Azure Container for PyTorch (ACPT) and seamlessly integrates with existing training pipelines for PyTorch models.

Composable with popular acceleration systems

Compose with DeepSpeed, FairScale, Megatron, and more for even faster and more efficient training.

Works with Azure AI curated models

ORT Training is turned on for curated models in the Azure AI | Machine Learning Studio model catalog.

Can be used to accelerate popular models like Llama-2-7b

ORT Training can be used to accelerate Hugging Face models like Llama-2-7b through these scripts.

Improved Foundation Model Performance with ORT Training

Foundation Model Throughput chart
Average throughput improvement:
2.7x
Median throughput improvement:
1.7x

On-Device Training



On-Device Training refers to the process of training a model on an edge device, such as mobile phones, embedded devices, gaming consoles, web browsers, etc. This is in contrast to training a model on a server or a cloud. On-Device Training extends the Inference ecosystem to leverage data on the device for providing customized user experiences on the edge. Once the model is trained on the device, it can be used to get an Inference model for deployment, update global weights for federated learning or create a checkpoint for future use. It also preserves user privacy by training on the device.


Get started with on-device training →

Benefits

Memory and performance efficiency

for lower resource consumption on device

Simple APIs and multiple language bindings

make it easy to scale across multiple platform targets

Improves data privacy & security

especially when working with sensitive data that cannot be shared with a server or a cloud

Same solution runs cross-platform

on cloud, desktop, edge, and mobile

Use Cases

Personalization tasks where the model needs to be trained on the user's data

    Examples:
  • Image / Audio classification
  • Text Prediction

Federated learning tasks where the model is locally trained on data distributed across multiple devices to build a more robust aggregated global model

    Examples:
  • Medical research
  • Autonomous vehicles
  • Robotics