Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

How Scaling Laws Drive Smarter, More Powerful AI

12/02/2025

Just as there are widely understood empirical laws of nature - for example, what goes up must come down, or every action has an equal and opposite reaction - the field of AI was long defined by a single idea: that more compute, more training data and more parameters makes a better AI model.

However, AI has since grown to need three distinct laws that describe how applying compute resources in different ways impacts model performance. Together, these AI scaling laws - pretraining scaling, post-training scaling and test-time scaling, also called long thinking - reflect how the field has evolved with techniques to use additional compute in a wide variety of increasingly complex AI use cases.

The recent rise of test-time scaling - applying more compute at inference time to improve accuracy - has enabled AI reasoning models, a new class of large language models (LLMs) that perform multiple inference passes to work through complex problems, while describing the steps required to solve a task. Test-time scaling requires intensive amounts of computational resources to support AI reasoning, which will drive further demand for accelerated computing.

What Is Pretraining Scaling? Pretraining scaling is the original law of AI development. It demonstrated that by increasing training dataset size, model parameter count and computational resources, developers could expect predictable improvements in model intelligence and accuracy.

Each of these three elements - data, model size, compute - is interrelated. Per the pretraining scaling law, outlined in this research paper, when larger models are fed with more data, the overall performance of the models improves. To make this feasible, developers must scale up their compute - creating the need for powerful accelerated computing resources to run those larger training workloads.

This principle of pretraining scaling led to large models that achieved groundbreaking capabilities. It also spurred major innovations in model architecture, including the rise of billion- and trillion-parameter transformer models, mixture of experts models and new distributed training techniques - all demanding significant compute.

And the relevance of the pretraining scaling law continues - as humans continue to produce growing amounts of multimodal data, this trove of text, images, audio, video and sensor information will be used to train powerful future AI models.

Pretraining scaling is the foundational principle of AI development, linking the size of models, datasets and compute to AI gains. Mixture of experts, depicted above, is a popular model architecture for AI training. What Is Post-Training Scaling? Pretraining a large foundation model isn't for everyone - it takes significant investment, skilled experts and datasets. But once an organization pretrains and releases a model, they lower the barrier to AI adoption by enabling others to use their pretrained model as a foundation to adapt for their own applications.

This post-training process drives additional cumulative demand for accelerated computing across enterprises and the broader developer community. Popular open-source models can have hundreds or thousands of derivative models, trained across numerous domains.

Developing this ecosystem of derivative models for a variety of use cases could take around 30x more compute than pretraining the original foundation model.

Developing this ecosystem of derivative models for a variety of use cases could take around 30x more compute than pretraining the original foundation model.

Post-training techniques can further improve a model's specificity and relevance for an organization's desired use case. While pretraining is like sending an AI model to school to learn foundational skills, post-training enhances the model with skills applicable to its intended job. An LLM, for example, could be post-trained to tackle a task like sentiment analysis or translation - or understand the jargon of a specific domain, like healthcare or law.

The post-training scaling law posits that a pretrained model's performance can further improve - in computational efficiency, accuracy or domain specificity - using techniques including fine-tuning, pruning, quantization, distillation, reinforcement learning and synthetic data augmentation.

Fine-tuning uses additional training data to tailor an AI model for specific domains and applications. This can be done using an organization's internal datasets, or with pairs of sample model input and outputs.

Distillation requires a pair of AI models: a large, complex teacher model and a lightweight student model. In the most common distillation technique, called offline distillation, the student model learns to mimic the outputs of a pretrained teacher model.

Reinforcement learning, or RL, is a machine learning technique that uses a reward model to train an agent to make decisions that align with a specific use case. The agent aims to make decisions that maximize cumulative rewards over time as it interacts with an environment - for example, a chatbot LLM that is positively reinforced by thumbs up reactions from users. This technique is known as reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF). Another, newer technique, reinforcement learning from AI feedback (RLAIF), instead uses feedback from AI models to guide the learning process, streamlining post-training efforts.

Best-of-n sampling generates multiple outputs from a language model and selects the one with the highest reward score based on a reward model. It's often used to improve an AI's outputs without modifying model parameters, offering an alternative to fine-tuning with reinforcement learning.

Search methods explore a range of potential decision paths before selecting a final output. This post-training technique can iteratively improve the model's responses
LINK: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/ai-scaling-laws/...
See more stories from nvidia

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

07/10/2026

Dalet Flex LTS Delivers Smarter Media Operations from Ingest to Distribution

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...

06/09/2026

Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Germany with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...

02/09/2026

SVG Venues & Teams Summit 2026: All Sessions Now Available To Watch on SVG PLAY

Professional and collegiate clubs, leading vendors discuss current trends in stadium production On. Aug. 12, the 2026 SVG Venues & Teams Summit explored the ev...

02/09/2026

SoFi Stadium Completes Broadcast Infrastructure Upgrade

SoFi Stadium, YouTube Theater, and Hollywood Park have completed an infrastructure upgrade expanding game presentation and broadcast production capabilities acr...

02/09/2026

IBC 2026: Comcast Technology Solutions Unveils AI-Powered Workflow Applications

Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) has announced a suite of AI-powered workflow applications for broadcasters, content owners, and operators, built on its Video...

02/09/2026

NABA and APWPT Announce Partnership on Wireless Spectrum Advocacy

The North American Broadcasters Association (NABA) and the Association of Professional Wireless Production Technologies (APWPT) have announced a partnership to ...

02/09/2026

Prime Video Lands Exclusive In-Market Streaming Rights for Six NHL Teams Beginning This Season

Carolina Hurricanes, Anaheim Ducks, Columbus Blue Jackets, Dallas Stars, Minneso...

02/09/2026

Mercedes-Benz Stadium Goes Mini: Nine-Year-Old Venue Continues to Innovate With Control Room Mini Halo Board

New LED provides enhanced quality control, quicker show prep, detailed productio...

02/09/2026

Keeley Electronics launch the Tube Drive

Combines the Phat Drive with high-voltage valve circuit The latest pedal from Keeley Electronics combines their popular Phat Mode drive pedal with an all-ne...

02/09/2026

Lewitt introduce Space Replicator Free

Free version of virtual mixing room plug-in introduced Lewitt's Space Replicator plug-in provides users with a virtual monitoring environment that aims ...

02/09/2026

Stereophonic Bundle from AIR Music Tech

Two new mixing & mastering plug-ins revealed AIR Music Tech have just introduced the Stereophonic Bundle, a pair of processing plug-ins designed to provide ...

02/09/2026

Rohde & Schwarz has achieved initial verification of 3GPP Rel. 17 power-saving feature SSSG for 5G NR

Rohde & Schwarz has achieved initial verification of 3GPP Rel. 17 power-saving f...

02/09/2026

AgileTV and Fiend MTS Complete CDN Watermarking Integration to Fast-Track Anti-Piracy Protection for Operators

Bilbao - 3rd September 2026 -AgileTV, a leading provider of end-to-end TV and vi...

02/09/2026

Agentic AI in the content supply chain

Why agentic media supply chains need experience design built around visibility, reversibility and human authority When AI can generate a functional interface ...

02/09/2026

Gracenote study: 85% of sports fans want TV home screens to show when and where to watch favorite teams

Six-country survey finds 26% of sports fans frequently unable to determine where...

02/09/2026

Manfrotto Showcases New Video Support Solutions at IBC 2026

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/09/2026

Mediagenix Rebrands Spideo as Mediagenix Curation

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/09/2026

Creative Technology Group Founder Graham Andrews Sets Year-End Exit

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/09/2026

San Antonio Spurs, DAZN Ink Exclusive Streaming Deal

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/09/2026

DPA Launches 6388 CORE Headset Microphone With Shifted Ac...

KOKKEDAL, DENMARK, SEPTEMBER 1, 2026 DPA Microphones announces its new 6388 CORE Headset Microphone, a high-performance directional headset designed for dema...

02/09/2026

Pliant Technologies Spotlights CrewCom CXD 32CF Dante AES...

Pliant Technologies will highlight its CrewCom CXD 32CF 32x32 Dante /AES67 Digital Audio Network Interface, a powerful connectivity solution designed to expand ...

02/09/2026

iWedia Enhances Teatro Pulse with Edge AI Self-Healing an...

iWedia, a leading provider of software solutions for connected TV devices, today announced two enhancements to Teatro Pulse, its end-to-end TV service operation...

02/09/2026

Signiant Accelerates More Than File Transfers at IBC2026

Signiant, trusted by the media industry for accelerated content movement for more than 20 years, will showcase the latest evolution of the Signiant Platform at ...

02/09/2026

Calrec Argo M Powers Cloudbass Next Generation OB Fleet

With a contractual agreement to supply a leading UK sports broadcaster with outside broadcast services for 104 football matches per season over the next four ye...

02/09/2026

IBC2026 puts sport at the winning end of media innovation

IBC2026 will put sport firmly at the centre of the global media and entertainment technology conversation with the strongest sports showing in the event's h...

02/09/2026

PTZOptics Demonstrates the Power of Intelligent Multicame...

PTZOptics will bring a hands-on showcase of intelligent video production to IBC2026 (11-14 September, RAI Amsterdam), with demonstrations spanning new camera te...

02/09/2026

OOONA Launches OOONA Go

OOONA, a global provider of professional management and production tools for the media localization industry, today announced the launch of OOONA Go, a ready-to...

02/09/2026

EON Media launches AI media activation and monetization s...

EON Media will make its European debut at IBC2026 (September 11-14, RAI Amsterdam) in the show's Future Tech Zone (Hall 14.FT5). The company is launching it...

02/09/2026

Frequency Defines the Intelligent Channel at IBC2026

Frequency, the engine behind many of the worlds leading streaming television channels, will demonstrate at IBC2026 how integrating intelligence throughout chann...

02/09/2026

FOR-A Introduces Go Vertical AiDi and AiDi Sports Hub Und...

On-device AI platform gives broadcasters and content creators purpose-built tools for real-time vertical video production and AI-enhanced sports coverage...

02/09/2026

Shotoku To Introduce Aura E2 PTZ Elevator At IBC2026

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/09/2026

AJA to Launch New openGear SDI/Fiber Conversion Cards at IBC2026

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/09/2026

GoPro to Merge with Starman Optical

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/09/2026

AIMS, EBU Completes Latest IPMX Certification Testing

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/09/2026

EVS To Showcase New Neuron 4X Processor At IBC 2026

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/09/2026

Sony Launches 100+ FAST Channels on Playstation 5 in the U.S.

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/09/2026

Canon Unveils PTZ Camera Firmware Updates

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/09/2026

EverPass Media Expands NFL Offering with Netflix Deal

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

02/09/2026

Imagine Communications Unveils Latest Control Portfolio A...

Next-Generation Freeform Control Surfaces Lay the Foundation for AI-Enabled Media Operations At IBC2026 (Sept. 11 14, RAI Amsterdam, Stand #1.B73), Imagine Com...

02/09/2026

Friedrichstadt-Palast Relies on Riedel for IP-Centered Pr...

Friedrichstadt-Palast in Berlin, the world's largest theater stage, has modernized its backstage production infrastructure with a comprehensive Riedel solut...

02/09/2026

WiM to Host Reel Forward Production Conference at CSU Los...

Women in Media announces that it will host the two-day Reel/Forward in-person conference devoted to navigating today's production scene. Guests can enjoy pa...

02/09/2026

Teradek and New Media AV Expand Partnership with Full Liv...

The expanded partnership brings Teradek's Live Production solutions to New Media AV's European dealer and integrator network, opening new opportunities ...

02/09/2026

QuickLink Expands StudioEdge With WhatsApp Cisco Webex an...

QuickLink, a leading provider of award-winning video production and remote guest contribution solutions, announces a major expansion to its award winning Studio...

02/09/2026

Vipe by BCNEXXT Gives Foxtel a New Playout Model for its...

BCNEXXT, the developers of the advanced playout platform Vipe, today announced that premium entertainment brand Foxtel has selected Vipe to underpin playout for...

02/09/2026

HOT Telecommunications supercharges localisation efficien...

SubtitleNEXT helps HOT Telecom's subtitling team keep a cool head with reliable QC capabilities Profuz Digital, global developer of digital media and local...

02/09/2026

Case Study - Mission Digital Strengthens Battery Safety w...

Case Study: Mission Digital Strengthens Battery Safety with Safe-ion As productions become increasingly dependent on battery-powered equipment, the safe storag...

02/09/2026

New design strategy expands nanoparticle vaccine approach to influenza viruses

LA JOLLA, CA-Influenza viruses constantly shapeshift to evade recognition by the immune system. This shapeshifting occurs in critical proteins like hemagglutini...

02/09/2026

New AI algorithm could improve detection and prediction of heart diseases

LA JOLLA, CA-Clinicians often use a medical test called a 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) to diagnose heart problems, which uses electrodes placed on the chest ...

02/09/2026

Where milliseconds matter: Scripps Research scientists build new ML model to predict protein movements essential for biological function

LA JOLLA, CA-Proteins may look like rigid molecular structures, but inside our c...