Lightweight Vision-Language Models: Simplifying AI Development with nanoVLM and PyTorch

nanoVLM: Building Lightweight Vision-Language Models with PyTorch An educational framework for training efficient multimodal AI systems. Introduction: Simplifying Vision-Language Model Development In the evolving landscape of multimodal AI, nanoVLM emerges as a minimalist PyTorch implementation designed to democratize access to vision-language model (VLM) development. Unlike resource-intensive counterparts, this framework prioritizes: Accessibility: ~750 lines of human-readable code Modularity: Four decoupled components for easy customization Performance: 35.3% accuracy on MMStar benchmark with 222M parameters Hardware Efficiency: Trains on a single H100 GPU in 6 hours Inspired by the philosophy of nanoGPT, nanoVLM serves as both an educational tool and a practical foundation …