[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"branding":3,"analytics":7,"article-one-engineer-trained-a-38b-model-for-998":10,"sections":41},{"siteName":4,"siteTagline":5,"publisherName":4,"contactEmail":6},"The Revision","Tech news, decoded.","editor@therevision.news",{"gaMeasurementId":8,"adsenseClientId":9},"G-ZW2MV82GYR","ca-pub-8533917693782264",{"article":11},{"id":12,"slug":13,"title":14,"dek":15,"body_md":16,"tags_json":17,"published_at":18,"created_at":19,"updated_at":20,"status":21,"review_note":22,"review_notes":23,"image_url":22,"persona_id":22,"persona_name":22,"section":30,"tags":31,"sources":36,"feedback":40,"feedback_at":22,"cost_usd":40,"total_tokens":40},6212,"one-engineer-trained-a-38b-model-for-998","One Engineer Trained a 3.8B Model for $998","A solo developer trained a 3.8 billion parameter model for $998, but the 0.384 CORE score has no published baseline for comparison.","An independent developer trained a 3.8 billion parameter language model from scratch for $998 in compute, then published the full recipe.\n\nHugo Vergnes detailed the project on his personal site: architecture choices, training data, and a final CORE benchmark score of 0.384. The post walks through the budget line by line, down to the compute hours that made up the $998 total. It picked up a modest 11 points and a single comment when it circulated online. There's no accompanying paper or peer review, just a blog post and the code.\n\nThat price tag matters more than the score. Training runs at this scale used to require serious institutional backing; a $998 budget suggests the floor for \"toy\" pretraining experiments keeps dropping. But the post doesn't say what a competitive CORE score looks like for a model this size, so there's no way to tell from the source alone whether 0.384 is impressive or just serviceable.\n\nCheap and reproducible isn't the same as competitive. Until someone runs the same recipe against a same-sized baseline, the real headline here is the price, not the performance.","[\"llm training\",\"benchmarks\",\"compute costs\",\"open source\"]","2026-09-10T02:04:11.000Z","2026-09-10T04:06:58.415Z","2026-09-10T04:07:09.497Z","published",null,[24],{"id":25,"reviewer":26,"round":27,"reason":28,"status":29},"publisher-r1","publisher",1,"The dek and body report the CORE score as 0.384, but the title claims $998 for training without mentioning benchmark context that would let a reader verify the score's significance, and the article never states what a competitive CORE score at this parameter count looks like—leaving the central capability claim unverified, though this alone is a caveat rather than a defect; the real issue is that the body's final paragraph trails off into a generic challenge ('whether the recipe holds up') witho","resolved","ai",[32,33,34,35],"llm training","benchmarks","compute costs","open source",[37],{"name":38,"url":39},"Hacker News","https:\u002F\u002Fhugovergnes.github.io\u002Flittle-lm-3-8b\u002F",0,{"sections":42},[43,47,51,56,61,66,71,75,80,85,90,95,100,105],{"name":44,"slug":30,"count":45,"latest_published_at":46},"AI",3480,"2026-09-11T04:00:00.000Z",{"name":48,"slug":49,"count":50,"latest_published_at":46},"Security","security",628,{"name":52,"slug":53,"count":54,"latest_published_at":55},"Policy","policy",336,"2026-09-11T00:56:21.000Z",{"name":57,"slug":58,"count":59,"latest_published_at":60},"Deals","deals",179,"2026-06-29T20:02:07.000Z",{"name":62,"slug":63,"count":64,"latest_published_at":65},"Hardware","hardware",153,"2026-09-09T15:12:32.000Z",{"name":67,"slug":68,"count":69,"latest_published_at":70},"Consumer Tech","consumer-tech",99,"2026-09-09T17:27:33.000Z",{"name":72,"slug":73,"count":74,"latest_published_at":46},"Science","science",98,{"name":76,"slug":77,"count":78,"latest_published_at":79},"Software","software",75,"2026-09-10T20:41:21.000Z",{"name":81,"slug":82,"count":83,"latest_published_at":84},"Dev Tools","dev-tools",69,"2026-08-18T04:00:00.000Z",{"name":86,"slug":87,"count":88,"latest_published_at":89},"Startups","startups",55,"2026-09-09T23:14:29.000Z",{"name":91,"slug":92,"count":93,"latest_published_at":94},"Gaming","gaming",43,"2026-09-10T12:18:06.000Z",{"name":96,"slug":97,"count":98,"latest_published_at":99},"General","general",41,"2026-09-08T01:57:23.000Z",{"name":101,"slug":102,"count":103,"latest_published_at":104},"Reviews","reviews",20,"2026-06-24T12:00:01.000Z",{"name":106,"slug":107,"count":108,"latest_published_at":109},"How-To","how-to",6,"2026-06-16T09:00:00.000Z"]