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Open-weight model · Speech recognition

whisper-small-malayalam

by Sajil C K sajilck/whisper-small-malayalam

whisper-small-malayalam is an open-weight model for speech recognition from Sajil C K, released under Apache License 2.0. It has 242M parameters. At 16-bit it needs about 0.6 GB of GPU memory, which fits on 1x MI300X from $1.85 an hour, at the lowest prices in the SAVRN Index. It draws 160 downloads a month.

Fine-tuned version of openai/whisper-small on a multi-corpus Malayalam speech dataset. - CPU speed (Transformers, FP32, 4 vCPU): RTF 1.96, i.e. slower than real time.

Parameters242M
Context—
Weights4.8 GB
Licenseapache-2.0
AccessOpen weights
Monthly Downloads160

Runs On

What it takes to serve whisper-small-malayalam (242M 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 0.5 GB 0.6 GB 1x MI300X (192 GB)
Vultr
$1.85 1x H100 $1.99 · 1x MI325X $2.00
8-bit 0.2 GB 0.3 GB 1x MI300X (192 GB)
Vultr
$1.85 1x H100 $1.99 · 1x MI325X $2.00
4-bit 0.1 GB 0.1 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 Oct 9, 2026.

whisper-small-malayalam on every accelerator the SAVRN Index prices, at every precision

Model Card

By Sajil C K, published under apache-2.0, revision dbd72416303a.

Fine-tuned version of openai/whisper-small on a multi-corpus Malayalam speech dataset.

Model Description

  • Base model: openai/whisper-small (244M parameters)
  • Language: Malayalam (ml)
  • Task: Automatic Speech Recognition (transcription)
  • Training steps: 3500
  • Best WER: 37.64% on CommonVoice 25 Malayalam test set
  • Leakage-free multi-source test: 47.8% WER / 13.6% CER (231 clips across 6 sources, none with a transcript in the training split — see Multi-source evaluation)
  • CPU speed (Transformers, FP32, 4 vCPU): RTF 1.96, i.e. slower than real time. For CPU deployment use the whisper.cpp builds

Training Data

The model was trained on an aggregated corpus of 5 Malayalam speech datasets, combined and published as sajilck/malayalam-asr-corpus.

Corpus Source Domain Access
IMaSC thennal/imasc TTS / Read speech HuggingFace
SMC Malayalam Speech Corpus sajilck/smc-malayalam-speech-corpus Read speech Kaggle
IndicTTS Malayalam kavyamanohar/indic-tts-malayalam-speech-corpus TTS / Read speech Kaggle
OpenSLR 63 sajilck/openslr63 Crowdsourced Kaggle
CommonVoice 25 Malayalam sajilck/common-voice-malayalam Crowdsourced Kaggle

Total: ~86,000 samples across TTS-recorded, read speech, and crowdsourced domains.

Benchmark Results

Read the full model card (2,020 words)

Configuration

Architecture
WhisperForConditionalGeneration
Layers
12
Vocabulary size
51,865
Model type
whisper

Identity and Version

Repository
sajilck/whisper-small-malayalam
Publisher
Sajil C K
Task
Speech recognition
Modality
Audio
Library
Not stated by the source
Parameters
242M parameters
Languages
ml
Revision
dbd72416303aa36b0fecf1d87bee6b0c9b20030f
First published
2026-06-11
Last updated
2026-10-09

Files and Weights

23 files, 4.8 GB in total. The weights are 11 files totalling 4.8 GB in bin, pt, pth, safetensors.

Weights11 files · 4.8 GB
Configuration8 files · 16.7 KB
Tokenizer2 files · 3.9 MB
Documentation1 file · 17.0 KB
Repository1 file · 1.5 KB
Every file
FileTypeSizeSHA-256
ggml/ggml-model-f16.binWeights487.6 MB 3d95f02e782f
ggml/ggml-model-q5_0.binWeights175.2 MB 38c42ff640f2
ggml/ggml-model-q8_0.binWeights264.5 MB 81d784cbf858
last-checkpoint/model.safetensorsWeights967.0 MB 4bf4160946b6
last-checkpoint/optimizer.ptWeights1.9 GB b5fd9c42629a
last-checkpoint/rng_state.pthWeights14.6 KB 76462a3c6db6
last-checkpoint/scaler.ptWeights1.4 KB 0ff58b41c367
last-checkpoint/scheduler.ptWeights1.5 KB b93466c1593a
last-checkpoint/training_args.binWeights5.4 KB 0a357fe12905
model.safetensorsWeights967.0 MB de719523b46e
training_args.binWeights5.4 KB 0a357fe12905
config.jsonConfiguration1.3 KB —
generation_config.jsonConfiguration3.8 KB —
last-checkpoint/config.jsonConfiguration1.3 KB —
last-checkpoint/generation_config.jsonConfiguration4.6 KB —
last-checkpoint/preprocessor_config.jsonConfiguration315 B —
last-checkpoint/trainer_state.jsonConfiguration4.7 KB —
preprocessor_config.jsonConfiguration315 B —
processor_config.jsonConfiguration409 B —
README.mdDocumentation17.0 KB —
.gitattributesRepository1.5 KB —
tokenizer.jsonTokenizer3.9 MB —
tokenizer_config.jsonTokenizer2.1 KB —

License and Download

License
apache-2.0
Access
Open weights, no gate
Download size
4.8 GB
Download from Sajil C K

Released by Sajil C K through its official repository on Hugging Face. Read the license.

Built From

Evaluations

Each result is shown as reported, with the conditions its reporter stated. None is a SAVRN measurement. A comparison lines two results up only when their configuration, unit and setup are all stated and identical.

BenchmarkConditionsResultReported byRevisionDate
Common Voice 25 (Malayalam) Configuration mlTask Automatic Speech RecognitionMetric WERComparison conditions not established 37.64 sajilck
Publisher reported
Evaluated revision not stated —
malayalam-asr-corpus test, leakage-filtered (231-clip source-balanced sample) Task Automatic Speech RecognitionMetric CER (normalised)Comparison conditions not established 13.56 sajilck
Publisher reported
Evaluated revision not stated —
malayalam-asr-corpus test, leakage-filtered (231-clip source-balanced sample) Task Automatic Speech RecognitionMetric WER (normalised)Comparison conditions not established 47.82 sajilck
Publisher reported
Evaluated revision not stated —

Memory Requirements

PrecisionWeights in memory
As published4.8 GB
16-bit0.5 GB
8-bit0.2 GB
4-bit0.1 GB

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

Questions About whisper-small-malayalam

How much GPU memory does whisper-small-malayalam need?

About 0.6 GB at 16-bit and 0.1 GB at 4-bit: the weights (242M parameters) plus a working margin. A long context needs more.

What is the cheapest GPU to run whisper-small-malayalam 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 whisper-small-malayalam commercially?

Yes. whisper-small-malayalam is released under Apache License 2.0. The Apache License 2.0 is a permissive open-source license. It permits commercial use, modification and redistribution. It requires keeping the license and copyright notices and any NOTICE file, stating significant changes, and it includes an express patent grant from contributors.

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