Adjustable precision for multi-stage compute processes

Abstract

Disclosed techniques provide for dynamically changing precision of a multi-stage compute process. For example, changing neural network (NN) parameters on a per-layer basis depending on properties of incoming data streams and per-layer performance of an NN among other considerations. NNs include multiple layers that may each be calculated with a different degree of accuracy and therefore, compute resource overhead (e.g., memory, processor resources, etc.). NNs are usually trained with 32-bit or 16-bit floating-point numbers. Once trained, an NN may be deployed in production. One approach to reduce compute overhead is to reduce parameter precision of NNs to 16 or 8 for deployment. The conversion to an acceptable lower precision is usually determined manually before deployment and precision levels are fixed while deployed. Disclosed techniques and implementations address automatic rather than manual determination or precision levels for different stages and dynamically adjusting precision for each stage at run-time.