4bit-Quantization in Vector-Embedding for RAG

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Jeong, Taehee
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Jeong, Taehee
author_facet Jeong, Taehee
contents Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is a promising technique that has shown great potential in addressing some of the limitations of large language models (LLMs). LLMs have two major limitations: they can contain outdated information due to their training data, and they can generate factually inaccurate responses, a phenomenon known as hallucinations. RAG aims to mitigate these issues by leveraging a database of relevant documents, which are stored as embedding vectors in a high-dimensional space. However, one of the challenges of using high-dimensional embeddings is that they require a significant amount of memory to store. This can be a major issue, especially when dealing with large databases of documents. To alleviate this problem, we propose the use of 4-bit quantization to store the embedding vectors. This involves reducing the precision of the vectors from 32-bit floating-point numbers to 4-bit integers, which can significantly reduce the memory requirements. Our approach has several benefits. Firstly, it significantly reduces the memory storage requirements of the high-dimensional vector database, making it more feasible to deploy RAG systems in resource-constrained environments. Secondly, it speeds up the searching process, as the reduced precision of the vectors allows for faster computation. Our code is available at https://github.com/taeheej/4bit-Quantization-in-Vector-Embedding-for-RAG
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_10534
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle 4bit-Quantization in Vector-Embedding for RAG
Jeong, Taehee
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is a promising technique that has shown great potential in addressing some of the limitations of large language models (LLMs). LLMs have two major limitations: they can contain outdated information due to their training data, and they can generate factually inaccurate responses, a phenomenon known as hallucinations. RAG aims to mitigate these issues by leveraging a database of relevant documents, which are stored as embedding vectors in a high-dimensional space. However, one of the challenges of using high-dimensional embeddings is that they require a significant amount of memory to store. This can be a major issue, especially when dealing with large databases of documents. To alleviate this problem, we propose the use of 4-bit quantization to store the embedding vectors. This involves reducing the precision of the vectors from 32-bit floating-point numbers to 4-bit integers, which can significantly reduce the memory requirements. Our approach has several benefits. Firstly, it significantly reduces the memory storage requirements of the high-dimensional vector database, making it more feasible to deploy RAG systems in resource-constrained environments. Secondly, it speeds up the searching process, as the reduced precision of the vectors allows for faster computation. Our code is available at https://github.com/taeheej/4bit-Quantization-in-Vector-Embedding-for-RAG
title 4bit-Quantization in Vector-Embedding for RAG
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.10534