We are open sourcing two of our datasets today, which were used in the training of Apollo Astralis 8B and 4B.
The first dataset, poetic-imagery-small is designed to give the model's responses a bit of "depth" to them in order to encourage curiosity and thought from the user.
Additionally, the excitement-small dataset is designed to teach the model how to use "excited" language conversationally. This dataset was used on both Apollo Astralis models, which effectively demonstrate general excitement during user interaction.
VANTA Research is an AI safety project which aims to research and develop language models aligned for all types of thinking. These datasets were created aligned with that mission, in addition to rigorous AI safety standards.
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post with โค๏ธ๐๐๐ค12 days ago
After training ๐๐ฆ๐จ๐ฅ๐๐๐ on ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ฌ for nearly a month, I've come to realize something most people overlook: ๐ข๐ง๐๐ซ๐๐ฌ๐ญ๐ซ๐ฎ๐๐ญ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ ๐ข๐ฌ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฆ๐๐ค๐-๐จ๐ซ-๐๐ซ๐๐๐ค ๐๐๐๐ญ๐จ๐ซ ๐ข๐ง ๐๐๐ ๐ญ๐ซ๐๐ข๐ง๐ข๐ง๐ . ๐ฅ
Everyone talks about model architecture and data quality. And yes, those matter immensely. But here's what nobody tells you: when your training run fails at 2 AM because of mysterious ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ซ๐ซ๐จ๐ซ๐ฌ, or when your expensive GPU cluster is running at ๐๐% ๐๐๐๐ข๐๐ข๐๐ง๐๐ฒ, the problem isn't your model. It's most probably a ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ ๐จ๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ก๐๐ซ๐๐ฐ๐๐ซ๐. ๐ ๏ธ
Questions that seemed simple but had no clear answers: Why is ๐๐จ๐ ๐ญ๐ซ๐๐ข๐ง๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ฌ๐ฅ๐จ๐ฐ๐๐ซ ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ง ๐๐๐ง๐ฌ๐ ๐ฆ๐จ๐๐๐ฅ๐ฌ? Which ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ฅ๐๐ ๐ฌ should we actually set? How often should we checkpoint without killing throughput?
That's why we built ๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ฆ๐จ๐ฅ ๐๐ซ๐๐ข๐ง๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐ฅ๐๐ฒ๐๐จ๐จ๐ค ๐: a complete guide covering everything from model architecture and data curation to the SmolLM3 training marathon, post-training techniques, and crucially, the ๐ข๐ง๐๐ซ๐๐ฌ๐ญ๐ซ๐ฎ๐๐ญ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ ๐ฅ๐๐ฒ๐๐ซ that most teams get wrong.
We validated real vs theoretical bandwidth across the entire stack: ๐๐๐๐ ๐ก๐ข๐ญ๐ญ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ ๐๐/๐ฌ, ๐๐๐๐ข๐ง๐ค ๐.๐ ๐ซ๐๐๐๐ก๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐/๐ฌ, ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ง๐ ๐๐ญ ๐๐.๐ ๐๐/๐ฌ. Then we ran collective operations across ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ฌ (16 nodes, 8xH100s each) and measured how performance degrades at scale: all-reduce drops from ๐๐๐ ๐๐/๐ฌ on a single node to ๐๐๐-๐๐๐ ๐๐/๐ฌ across 16 nodes.
If you've ever wondered why your training runs are slower than they should be, or you're planning to scale up and want to avoid expensive mistakes, this guide might save you weeks of debugging.
Why I think local, open-source models will eventually win.
The most useful AI applications are moving toward multi-turn agentic behavior: systems that take hundreds or even thousands of iterative steps to complete a task, e.g. Claude Code, computer-control agents that click, type, and test repeatedly.
In these cases, the power of the model is not how smart it is per token, but in how quickly it can interact with its environment and tools across many steps. In that regime, model quality becomes secondary to latency.
An open-source model that can call tools quickly, check that the right thing was clicked, or verify that a code change actually passes tests can easily outperform a slightly โsmarterโ closed model that has to make remote API calls for every move.
Eventually, the balance tips: it becomes impractical for an agent to rely on remote inference for every micro-action. Just as no one would tolerate a keyboard that required a network request per keystroke, users wonโt accept agent workflows bottlenecked by latency. All devices will ship with local, open-source models that are โgood enoughโ and the expectation will shift toward everything running locally. Itโll happen sooner than most people think.
Some weeks ago, i've just decide its time to leave LinkedIn for me. It got silent around my open source activities the last year, so i thought something has to change.
That's why my focus will move to share experiences and insights about hardware, drivers, kernels and linux. I won't post about how to use models, built agents or do prompting. I want to share about some deeper layers the actual hypes are built on.
I will start posting summarizations of my articles here on the hub. English version: https://flozi.net/en