Known as model distillation, the method uses the outputs of a ‌powerful AI system to train a smaller model that can perform some of the same tasks with fewer computing resources. WHAT IS MODEL DISTILLATION? The largest AI models, known as frontier models, require enormous amounts of computing power, data and investment to train. Advertisement AdvertisementModel distillation offers a way to create smaller systems by using a large "teacher" model to train a smaller "student" model. These "reasoning traces" can show a smaller model how to approach a difficult problem rather than simply what answer to produce.