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Equation 5 · Part 1 · Comparing the Main Approaches to AI Inference Economics

Symbol N_total

NtotalN_{\mathrm{total}}
NtotalN_{\mathrm{total}}

What this part means

NtN_total is a part of this expression. Its role is fixed by the surrounding article and by the operations shown in the formula.

Its job in the formula

NtN_total is a part of this expression. Its role is fixed by the surrounding article and by the operations shown in the formula.

The passage around this formula

for a dense model with NdenseN_{\mathrm{dense}} parameters compared against an MoE model activating NactiveN_{\mathrm{active}} of its NtotalN_{\mathrm{total}} parameters per token. What this ratio hides is exactly what a compute-only comparison always hides: memory. Serving an MoE model requires holding all NtotalN_{\mathrm{total}} parameters resident — on one device or, more often, sharded across several with communication between them…

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A subscript is a label attached below a symbol. It often selects a time step, component, category, or member of a sequence.

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Sources cited in the article section

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