Sign-In
Cart
Small Language Models for Efficient AI: A Practical Guide to Deciding, Designing, Developing, and Deploying Slm Systems
Paperback
General ComputersProbability & Statistics
Publisher Price: $64.99
Publisher: Apress
Published: Jun 13 2027
Language: English
Small Language Models for Efficient AI
Small Language Models are reshaping how practical AI systems are built. When latency, cost, privacy, memory, and deployment flexibility matter as much as raw model capability, smaller models can offer a better engineering fit - but only when they are designed, trained, evaluated, and integrated with discipline.
Small Language Models for Efficient AI provides a practical guide to the complete SLM lifecycle. It explains how to choose the right model strategy, prepare effective data, train or adapt compact models, align desired behaviour, evaluate quality and efficiency, and optimize inference for production. It also shows how SLMs can operate within larger AI systems through LLM fallback, retrieval, tool use, agentic workflows, knowledge augmentation, and edge deployment.
Written for AI engineers, forward-deployed engineers, applied scientists, the book focuses on practical decisions, repeatable workflows, and production trade-offs rather than theory alone. Practical case studies and reference implementations translate the book's engineering principles into adaptable solution patterns that readers can extend to their own domains, workloads, and deployment environments.
By the end, readers will understand where SLMs provide the most value, how to build and optimize them effectively, how to recognize their capability boundaries, and how to engineer reliable AI systems that combine efficiency with the right level of intelligence.
What You Will Learn
- Deciding when to use SLMs based on capability, cost, latency, privacy, data, and deployment constraints
- Designing effective SLM systems across architecture, tokenization, data strategy, retrieval, tools, agents, guardrails, and system boundaries
- Developing capable SLMs through training, distillation, fine-tuning, preference optimization, domain adaptation, evaluation, and optimization
- Deploying reliable SLM solutions using quantization, efficient inference, routing, observability, controlled execution, recovery, and edge deployment
- Applying SLM engineering in practice through case studies, reference code, and reusable implementation patterns for real-world projects
Who this book is for:
This book is for AI engineers and applied scientists developing compact language models for production use. It also serves practitioners and technical teams deploying efficient, cost-effective SLM solutions across enterprise and edge environments.
Also in
General Computers
All Data Are Local: Thinking Critically in a Data-Driven Society
Loukissas, Yanni Alexander
Paperback
Comptia Network+ Certmike: Prepare. Practice. Pass the Test! Get Certified!: Exam N10-008
Chapple, Mike
Zacker, Craig
Paperback
Interactive Theorem Proving and Program Development: Coq'art: The Calculus of Inductive Constructions
Castéran, Pierre
Bertot, Yves
Hardcover
R for Data Science: Import, Tidy, Transform, Visualize, and Model Data
Grolemund, Garrett
Wickham, Hadley
Paperback
The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI: How to Think about Artificial Intelligence--Before It's Too Late
Doctorow, Cory
Paperback
The Agi Chronicles: The Inside Story of the Race to Create an Artificial Superintelligence
Roose, Kevin
Hardcover
Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems
Riccomini, Chris
Kleppmann, Martin
Paperback
The Year in Tech, 2027: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review
Chamorro-Premuzic, Tomas
Review, Harvard Business
Davenport, Thomas H.
Paperback
AI for Good: How Real People Are Using Artificial Intelligence to Fix Things That Matter
Tyrangiel, Josh
Hardcover
If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All
Yudkowsky, Eliezer
Soares, Nate
Hardcover
Human Raised: Nurturing Connection, Curiosity & Lifelong Learning in the Age of AI
Suskind, Dana, MD
Hardcover
The Eureka Machine: Why AI Is the Key to Unlocking a New Era of Scientific Discoveries
Socher, Richard
Hardcover
Hbr's 10 Must Reads on AI (with Bonus Article How to Win with Machine Learning by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and AVI Goldfarb)
Review, Harvard Business
Davenport, Thomas H.
Iansiti, Marco
Paperback
The Year in Tech, 2026: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review
Anthony, Scott D.
Webb, Amy
Review, Harvard Business
Paperback
CompTIA Network+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Ninth Edition (Exam N10-009)
Weissman, Jonathan S.
Paperback
The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want
Bender, Emily M.
Hanna, Alex
Hardcover
Fans First: Change The Game, Break the Rules & Create an Unforgettable Experience
Cole, Jesse
Paperback
Generative Ai: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review
Mollick, Ethan
Cremer, David De
Review, Harvard Business
Paperback
A Giant Leap: How AI Is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future
Wachter, Robert
Hardcover
AI Literacy in Any Class: Preparing Students to Thrive in an AI Future in Any Grade Level or Content Area
Miller, Matt
Paperback
Obsolete: The AI Industry's Trillion Dollar Race to Replace Us--And How to Stop It
Lovely, Garrison
Paperback
Fundamentals of Data Engineering: Plan and Build Robust Data Systems
Reis, Joe
Housley, Matt
Paperback
Minecraft: Guide Collection 4-Book Boxed Set (Updated): Survival (Updated), Creative (Updated), Redstone (Updated), Combat
Mojang Ab
The Official Minecraft Team
Hardcover
Love Machines: How Artificial Intelligence Is Transforming Our Relationships
Muldoon, James
Hardcover
Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence
Crawford, Kate
Paperback
AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference
Narayanan, Arvind
Kapoor, Sayash
Paperback
AI with Intention: Principles and Action Steps for Teachers and School Leaders
Frontier, Tony
Paperback
Python Crash Course, 3rd Edition: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming
Matthes, Eric
Paperback
AP Computer Science Principles Premium, 2027: 6 Practice Tests + Comprehensive Review + Online Practice
Reichelson, Seth
Paperback
An Illustrated Guide to AI Agents: Concepts and Code for Building Agents with Llms, Tools, and Memory
Grootendorst, Maarten
Alammar, Jay
Paperback
Hbr's 10 Must Reads on Artificial Intelligence, Updated and Expanded (Featuring How AI Can Help Managers Think Through Problems by Elisa Farri and Gab
Davenport, Thomas H.
Agrawal, Ajay
Review, Harvard Business
Paperback
The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World's Most Coveted Microchip
Witt, Stephen
Hardcover
CompTIA Tech+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Third Edition (Exam FC0-U71)
Wempen, Faithe
Paperback
Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn and Pytorch: Concepts, Tools, and Techniques to Build Intelligent Systems
Géron, Aurélien
Paperback
The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable: With a New Section: On Robustness and Fragility
Taleb, Nassim Nicholas
Paperback
Embedded Systems with ARM Cortex-M Microcontrollers in Assembly Language and C: Fourth Edition
Zhu, Yifeng
Paperback
We Are as Gods: A Survival Guide for the Age of Abundance
Kotler, Steven
Diamandis, Peter H.
Hardcover
Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans (with a New Preface)
Mitchell, Melanie
Paperback
AP Computer Science a Premium, 13th Edition: Prep Book with 6 Practice Tests + Comprehensive Review + Online Practice (2026)
Teukolsky, Roselyn, M. S.
Carman, Chris
Paperback
Hands-On Large Language Models: Language Understanding and Generation
Grootendorst, Maarten
Alammar, Jay
Paperback
Human + Machine, Updated and Expanded: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI
Wilson, H. James
Daugherty, Paul R.
Hardcover
Guilty Pleasure: The Pornification of the Internet, the Economy, and Everything Else
Nilsson, Patricia
Hardcover
Fundamentals of Software Architecture: A Modern Engineering Approach
Richards, Mark
Ford, Neal
Paperback
Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence
Agrawal, Ajay
Gans, Joshua
Goldfarb, Avi
Hardcover
The Empty Center: Permission, Connection, and What We Build When the Future is Uncertain
Drumwright, Hayes
Hardcover
The Problem with Personalization: How Advertisers Learned to Make and Break Us from Ancient Times to the AI Age
Turow, Joseph
Hardcover
Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet with a New Introduction by the Author
Blum, Andrew
Paperback
Minecraft: Exploded Builds: Medieval Fortress: An Official Mojang Book
Mojang Ab
The Official Minecraft Team
Paperback
AI Projects with Raspberry Pi: High-Performance Artificial Intelligence for Robotics, Security, Home Automation, and Vision
Jepson, Brian
Hattersley, Lucy
Paperback
RHCSA Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10: Training and Exam Preparation Guide (EX200), Fourth Edition
Ghori, Asghar
Paperback
You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It's Making the World a Weirder Place
Shane, Janelle
Paperback
The Empty Center: Permission, Connection, and What We Build When the Future is Uncertain
Drumwright, Hayes
Paperback
The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century's Greatest Dilemma
Suleyman, Mustafa
Hardcover
Designing Machine Learning Systems: An Iterative Process for Production-Ready Applications
Huyen, Chip
Paperback
Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems
Leng, Christof
Beyer, Betsy
Jones, Chris
Paperback
AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference
Narayanan, Arvind
Kapoor, Sayash
Hardcover
Artificial Intelligence All-In-One for Dummies
Minnick, Chris
Mueller, John Paul
Massaron, Luca
Paperback
The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters
Nichols, Tom
Paperback
Graphic Artists Guild Handbook, 17th Edition: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines
The Graphic Artists Guild
Paperback
The Devops Handbook, 2nd Edition: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, & Security in Technology Organizations
Debois, Patrick
Kim, Gene
Humble, Jez
Paperback
The Return on AI: From Promise to Profit in the Age of Intelligent Business
Sawhney, Mohanbir
Mittal, Ashwin
Paperback
Minecraft: Roll for Adventure: The Temple of the Charged Creeper
Forbeck, Matt
Forbeck, Marty
Hardcover
Comptia A+ Complete Study Guide, 2-Volume Set: Volume 1 Core 1 Exam 220-1201 and Volume 2 Core 2 Exam 220-1202
Buhagiar, Jon
Docter, Quentin
Paperback
Navigeren door het labyrint: Een handleiding voor het beheer van data
Sebastian-Coleman, Laura
Paperback
AI for Educators: Learning Strategies, Teacher Efficiencies, and a Vision for an Artificial Intelligence Future
Miller, Matt
Paperback
R for Data Science: Import, Tidy, Transform, Visualize, and Model Data
Grolemund, Garrett
Cetinkaya-Rundel, Mine
Wickham, Hadley
Paperback
What Is Intelligence?: Lessons from AI about Evolution, Computing, and Minds
Aguera Y. Arcas, Blaise
Paperback
More Human: How the Power of AI Can Transform the Way You Lead
Carter, Jacqueline
Hougaard, Rasmus
Hardcover
Evals for AI Engineers: Systematically Measuring and Improving AI Applications
Husain, Hamel
Shankar, Shreya
Paperback