Run an 80B Qwen in 4.3 GB of RAM on a Mac, and a 35B on an iPhone
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HN · launched Aug 3, 2026 · 312 upvotes (top 1%) · 0 views
Niche: llm inference engines · 133 launches, 4 in the last 7 days ▼ -33% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Model & infra
- Developer
- AI-native
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 133 launches in llm inference engines →
Could you build this?
No Fitting an 80B model into 4.3 GB of RAM requires extreme sub-1-bit quantization research (such as BitNet, AQLM, or custom ternary/binary matrix multiplication kernels) and deep hardware-level optimization for Apple Silicon/Metal.
What it would actually take: This project requires custom low-level C++/Metal kernels implementing extreme quantization schemes (e.g., 0.5 to 1.58 bits per weight) alongside tailored activation memory management. The developer must have deep expertise in low-precision numerical methods, SIMD/NEON/Metal assembly optimization, and transformer inference runtime internals. Off-the-shelf vibe coding cannot produce correct or performant custom GPU/NPU kernels at this level of algorithmic complexity.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: iPhone local LLMs, Ollama, TurboFieldfare, Chinese LLMs
Concerns raised: Prefill latency takes too long, Frontier labs will prevent open-weight model adoption, SSD storage solution won't be cost-effective within 10 years, Greedy pricing stalls progress and adoption, Noise and performance concerns with local inference
Feature requests: Support for Android/Linux/Windows platforms, Gemma model support, Improved prefill performance
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 864 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #18 of 865 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 269 days after the earliest competitor.
- Samosa Chat · hn · 2026-07-15 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.64
- Running 104GB Qwen3.8-Flash-Next on 48GB Mac with at ~12 tok/s · hn · 2026-09-01 · 240 upvotes · similarity 0.59
- backburner · github · 2026-10-01 · 630 upvotes · similarity 0.58
- SimRun · github · 2026-10-10 · 256 upvotes · similarity 0.58
- Run Full Kimi K3 with 29 GB of RAM · hn · 2026-07-30 · 9 upvotes · similarity 0.57
- UniXNU · github · 2026-10-19 · 851 upvotes · similarity 0.56
- Qwen3.6-35B-A3B on a 16 GB M1 Pro with SSD-streamed MoE · hn · 2026-07-17 · 24 upvotes · similarity 0.56
- LinuxRunner · github · 2026-10-25 · 374 upvotes · similarity 0.56
The niche, labels, vibe code rating and competitor comparison on this page are analysis by Nicheloom. If you use them, please credit nicheloom.com. How you may use our data.