Google TurboQuant: Extreme Compression Research Enables 2-Bit LLMs on Edge Devices

Google Research / r/LocalLLaMA·medium signal

Google Research published TurboQuant, a method for extreme quantization that pushes LLMs to 2-bit precision while retaining usable quality. Community is already implementing it for MLX Studio (Apple Silicon inference), targeting mobile and edge deployment. At 2-bit, a 70B parameter model could fit in ~17GB — within range of consumer GPUs and high-end phones. This has direct implications for local coding assistants running on-device without API calls.