Granite Switch 4.1: Chat, Decisions, and Speech from One Endpoint
Hugging Face granite Libraries: The OG Decision Models Compose and Extend Your Own Granite Switch Model Resources for Getting Started Introduced last spring, the Granite Switch project enables a modular approach to model development. Now Granite Switch 4.1 models, armed with a Decision adapter and the fastest ASR model on the OpenASR leaderboard, can move efficiently between natural-language responses, general and specialized decisions, and speech-to-text tasks—all from one hosted endpoint.
Specifically, Granite-Switch-4.1-8B and -30B models are configured to include: All three of these technologies (along with the underlying base model) are composed into one model, taking up approximately the same amount of VRAM on a GPU as the base model would by itself. That means more capabilities with fewer GPUs. And because the Switch adapters were built as cache-efficient Activated LoRAs, the KV cache created from a base model generation can be reused for any subsequent adapter-based decisions. Combined with our team’s recent vLLM contributions to speed up low rank adapter inferencing, as well as a co-located ASR encoder, Granite Switch 4.1 models can switch between a chat request and a decision request and a spoken request, with blazing fast speeds. Check out our Speech-to-Decisions HF space where granite-switch-4.1-8b transcribes audio, generates summaries, screens for harmful content, and tests 15 other user-defined flags—all running on a single endpoint in real time. Decision models aren’t new. Our previous release of Granite Libraries features a repository of specialized “decision model” adapters and other specialized task adapters that can be composed into custom Granite Switch models. And while Jev and other closed decision models focus on generality, we’ve found that many of our specialized granitelib adapters can outperform generalists on specialized classification tasks. Compare granitelib adapters with generalist decision models when evaluated on specialized classification tasks. Because adapters share the base model’s KV cache, adding specialists alongside a generalist decision adapter costs almost nothing. You get broad coverage from the generalist and higher accuracy from specialists on the tasks you care about. In a “Race” between Granite-Switch-4.1-30B (frozen base Granite + 4 specialized aLoRAs) and Jev-27B (frozen base Qwen model + 1 generic decision LoRA), Granite-Switch-4.1-30B was able to complete a real world, 5-step RAG workflow much faster than its competitor. Granite-Switch-4.1-8B and -30B are released with “batteries included”. They are Granite Switch models that we compiled with a predefined set of helpful adapters. But you don’t need to use our version.