Infrastructure

FP4

4-bit floating-point format introduced on Blackwell GPUs — double FP8 throughput at inference.

Definition

FP4 packs an exponent and minimal mantissa into 4 bits, doubling the throughput of FP8 on NVIDIA's Blackwell architecture (B200). Combined with second-gen Transformer Engine it enables inference at extreme speeds with managed quality loss.

Common use cases

  • Blackwell inference
  • Large-MoE serving
  • Cost reduction

Related terms

    FP4 — AI Glossary | Railwail