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Open-weight model · Image to text

blip-image-captioning-large

by Salesforce AI Research Salesforce/blip-image-captioning-large

captioning pretrained on COCO dataset - base architecture (with ViT large backbone). Authors from the paper write in the abstract: Vision-Language Pre-training (VLP) has advanced the performance for many vision-language tasks.

Parameters470M
Context512
Weights5.6 GB
Licensebsd-3-clause
AccessOpen weights
Monthly Downloads539.2k

Runs On

What it takes to serve blip-image-captioning-large (470M parameters): the memory its weights need at each precision, and the cheapest way to rent enough data-center GPUs to hold them.

PrecisionWeightsMemory neededCheapest setupPer hourAlso fits
16-bit 0.9 GB 1.1 GB 1x MI300X (192 GB)
Vultr
$1.85 1x H100 $1.99 · 1x MI325X $2.00
8-bit 0.5 GB 0.6 GB 1x MI300X (192 GB)
Vultr
$1.85 1x H100 $1.99 · 1x MI325X $2.00
4-bit 0.2 GB 0.3 GB 1x MI300X (192 GB)
Vultr
$1.85 1x H100 $1.99 · 1x MI325X $2.00

Memory is the weights at that precision plus 20% for the runtime and a short context; a long context needs more. Prices are the lowest on-demand hourly rates in the SAVRN Index, read Sep 18, 2026.

SAVRN's Notes on blip-image-captioning-large

Point this one at a photo and it writes a caption. At 470M parameters the job is cheap: 0.9 GB of weights and 1.1 GB of memory at 16-bit, 0.6 GB at 8-bit. The cheapest setup in our table, a single MI300X with 192 GB at $1.85 an hour on demand, sits almost entirely idle serving it, so we would run it on shared inference hardware rather than give it a card. The 5.6 GB download is float32 on disk, larger than any of the running figures.

BSD 3-Clause permits commercial use and redistribution with the copyright notice kept, and forbids using the authors' names to endorse a derived product, so keep Salesforce AI Research out of your marketing copy. Check that the 512-token context covers your caption lengths, and read arXiv:2201.12086 before committing: pretraining was on the COCO dataset and the release dates to 2022-12-13.

Model Card

By Salesforce AI Research, published under bsd-3-clause, revision 353689b859fc.

BLIP: Bootstrapping Language-Image Pre-training for Unified Vision-Language Understanding and Generation

Model card for image captioning pretrained on COCO dataset - base architecture (with ViT large backbone).

Pull figure from BLIP official repo

TL;DR

Authors from the paper write in the abstract:

Read the full model card (594 words)

Configuration

Architecture
BlipForConditionalGeneration
Context length (tokens)
512
Layers
12
Hidden size
768
Feed-forward size
3,072
Attention heads
12
Vocabulary size
30,524
Stored precision
float32
Model type
blip

Identity and Version

Repository
Salesforce/blip-image-captioning-large
Publisher
Salesforce AI Research
Task
Image to text
Modality
Image and text
Library
transformers
Parameters
470M parameters
Languages
tf
Revision
353689b859fcf0523410b1806dace5fb46ecdf41
First published
2022-12-13
Last updated
2025-02-03

Files and Weights

11 files, 5.6 GB in total. The weights are 3 files totalling 5.6 GB in bin, h5, safetensors.

Weights3 files · 5.6 GB
Configuration3 files · 5.2 KB
Tokenizer3 files · 943.4 KB
Documentation1 file · 6.2 KB
Repository1 file · 1.5 KB
Every file
FileTypeSizeSHA-256
model.safetensorsWeights1.9 GB ebc867586b83
pytorch_model.binWeights1.9 GB 66c8aec8d91b
tf_model.h5Weights1.9 GB 9fb4b74fce7b
config.jsonConfiguration4.6 KB
preprocessor_config.jsonConfiguration445 B
special_tokens_map.jsonConfiguration125 B
README.mdDocumentation6.2 KB
.gitattributesRepository1.5 KB
tokenizer.jsonTokenizer711.4 KB
tokenizer_config.jsonTokenizer527 B
vocab.txtTokenizer231.5 KB

License and Download

License
bsd-3-clause
Access
Open weights, no gate
Download size
5.6 GB
Download from Salesforce AI Research

Released by Salesforce AI Research through its official repository on Hugging Face. Read the license.

Built From

Memory Requirements

PrecisionWeights in memory
As published5.6 GB
16-bit0.9 GB
8-bit0.5 GB
4-bit0.2 GB

Weights only, from the published parameter count; the key-value cache and runtime add to this.

Questions About blip-image-captioning-large

How much GPU memory does blip-image-captioning-large need?

About 1.1 GB at 16-bit and 0.3 GB at 4-bit: the weights (470M parameters) plus a working margin. A long context needs more.

What is the cheapest GPU to run blip-image-captioning-large on?

At 16-bit, 1x MI300X from $1.85 an hour; at 4-bit, 1x MI300X from $1.85 an hour, at the lowest on-demand prices the SAVRN Index lists.

Can I use blip-image-captioning-large commercially?

Yes. blip-image-captioning-large is released under BSD 3-Clause License. The BSD 3-Clause License is permissive. It permits commercial use and redistribution with the copyright notice, and forbids using the authors' names to endorse derived products without permission.

What is blip-image-captioning-large's context length?

512 tokens, from the maximum position embeddings in its published configuration.

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