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Equation 1 · Part 5 · The Real Economics of Shipping a Model to a Device

=

TCdistill=Cdistill+Q⋅cstudent,TC_{\mathrm{distill}} = C_{\mathrm{distill}} + Q \cdot c_{\mathrm{student}},
=

What this part means

The expressions on both sides represent the same quantity under the stated assumptions.

Its job in the formula

The equals sign connects the complete expression on the left with the complete expression on the right. Both sides must have compatible units.

The passage around this formula

That gap explains why distillation investment almost never fails its own break-even test once a product actually ships. Write the total cost of training and then serving a distilled student model as TCdistill=Cdistill+Q⋅cstudentTC_{\mathrm{distill}} = C_{\mathrm{distill}} + Q \cdot c_{\mathrm{student}}. against the cost of simply continuing to serve the teacher directly for the same query volume,

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Learn the underlying idea

An equals sign says that the expression on its left and the expression on its right have the same value under the stated definitions and assumptions.

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Sources cited in the article section

These citations provide research context; check each source for the exact claim it supports.