Distillation
Training a small model to imitate a large one, keeping most of the quality at a fraction of the cost.
In distillation a large teacher model generates outputs that train a smaller student. The student ends up cheaper and faster while retaining much of the teacher’s behaviour on the target distribution. Most affordable production models are distilled from something larger.
In practice: A model 10× smaller and 20× cheaper that handles 90% of your traffic just as well.