Beyond Efficiency: A Systematic Survey of Resource-Efficient Large Language Models

Abstract

The burgeoning field of Large Language Models (LLMs), exemplified by sophisticated models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, represents a significant advancement in artificial intelligence. These models, however, bring forth substantial challenges in high consumption of computational, memory, energy, and financial resources, especially in environments with limited resource capabilities. This survey aims to systematically address these challenges by reviewing a broad spectrum of techniques designed to enhance the resource efficiency of LLMs. We categorize methods based on their optimization focus—covering computational, memory, energy, financial, and network resources—and their applicability across various stages of an LLM’s lifecycle, including architecture design, pre-training, fine-tuning, and system design. Additionally, the survey introduces a nuanced categorization of resource efficiency techniques by their specific resource types, which uncovers the intricate relationships and mappings between various resources and corresponding optimization techniques. A standardized set of evaluation metrics and datasets is also presented to facilitate consistent and fair comparisons across different models and techniques. By offering a comprehensive overview of the current state-of-the-art and identifying open research avenues, this survey serves as a foundational reference for researchers and practitioners, aiding them in developing more sustainable and efficient LLMs in a rapidly evolving landscape. To make the field more accessible to interested beginners, we not only make a systematic review of existing works and a highly structured taxonomy of resource-efficient LLMs but also release a website including a constantly-updated paper list https://github.com/tiingweii-shii/Awesome-Resource-Efficient-LLM-Papers.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. ACM Computing Surveys, 2026 · DOI ↗