# Pre-Training My First Base Language Model From Scratch

Took a model from random initialization through 2B tokens of FineWeb-Edu on a single H100 and watched it learn next-token prediction from nothing.

- Published: 2026-05-13
- Modified: 2026-05-13
- Tags: Pre-Training
- Canonical: https://aroramrinaal.com/ai/first-pre-train-llm
- Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/collections/mrinaalarora/124m-base-experiments
- X: https://x.com/arora_mrinaal/status/2053774186322251822

![Google search result showing GPT-2 Small as a 124M parameter model](https://media.aroramrinaal.com/ai/first-llm-pre-train/01-gpt2-small-124m-reference.jpeg)

## Why I Wanted To Do This

I'd already messed around with [cold start SFT](https://aroramrinaal.com/ai/nanbeige-cold-start-sft), stumbled through a few [RL experiments](https://aroramrinaal.com/ai/first-rl-experimental-project), and squeezed models down for [Parameter Golf](https://aroramrinaal.com/ai/parameter-golf-openai-model-craft). But pre-training still felt like a black box. I wanted to start from actual random weights, feed the model raw internet text, and watch it learn next-token prediction from nothing.

So the goal was simple: train a real base model. Small enough that I could wrap my head around it and actually pay for the compute, but not so small that the whole thing would feel like a toy. GPT-2 small from 2019 was about `124M` parameters, and that number just stuck in my head as a useful anchor.

What I actually trained was a **`123.6M` parameter decoder-only causal LM** on a **`2B` token slice** of [FineWeb-Edu](https://huggingface.co/datasets/HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu). I kept the GPT-2 tokenizer for simplicity, but **the architecture itself is modern: RoPE, RMSNorm, SwiGLU, no linear biases, and tied input-output embeddings.**

## The Setup

I kept the training config deliberately simple. `12` layers, `12` heads, hidden size `768`, context length `1024`, GPT-2 vocab of `50257`. Batch size `8`, `244000` steps, max LR `3e-4`, min LR `3e-5`, `2000` warmup steps, `0.1` weight decay, gradient clipping at `1.0`.


```yaml
modal:
  gpu: H100

tracking:
  backend: trackio
  project: first-llm-pre-train
  run_name: 124m-fineweb-edu-2b-h100
  space_id: mrinaalarora/trackio

model:
  vocab_size: 50257
  block_size: 1024
  n_layer: 12
  n_head: 12
  n_embd: 768
  dropout: 0.0

train:
  dataset_dir: /vol/datasets/fineweb_edu_gpt2_2b_train
  val_dataset_dir: /vol/datasets/fineweb_edu_gpt2_20m_val
  checkpoint_dir: /vol/checkpoints/124m_main_2b
  batch_size: 8
  max_steps: 244000
```

For data I grabbed a contiguous `2B` token training split from FineWeb-Edu plus a `20M` token validation split, both pretokenized with the GPT-2 tokenizer.

![FineWeb-Edu 2B token data config](https://media.aroramrinaal.com/ai/first-llm-pre-train/03-fineweb-edu-2b-data-config.png)

I ran the actual training job on [Modal](https://modal.com) with a single NVIDIA H100. I also hooked up [Trackio](https://github.com/gradio-app/trackio) to stream metrics live into a Hugging Face Space, which meant I could watch the run from a dashboard instead of just tailing logs in a terminal.

The live dashboard for the run is here: [first-llm-pre-train Trackio dashboard](http://mrinaalarora-trackio.hf.space/?project=first-llm-pre-train&run_ids=7f000508236944f3832545741e830ae7).

## The Actual Training Run

The final run took about `6` hours on the H100. Modal showed the function call finishing successfully after `5h 58m`. After a bunch of smaller test runs and config tweaks that kept breaking or timing out, seeing that clean green success badge felt good.

![Modal function calls view showing the main training run succeeding](https://media.aroramrinaal.com/ai/first-llm-pre-train/04-modal-main-run-function-calls.png)

The checkpoint folder on the Modal volume had what I actually needed: `best.pt`, `last.pt`, `metrics.jsonl`, and `run_summary.json`.

![Modal volume files for the completed 124M run](https://media.aroramrinaal.com/ai/first-llm-pre-train/05-modal-main-run-files.png)

![Modal execution timeline showing the H100 run finishing in about 6 hours](https://media.aroramrinaal.com/ai/first-llm-pre-train/06-modal-main-run-execution-h100.png)

Raw train loss started around `10.98` and ended at `3.70`. Best validation loss was `3.45` at step `242K`. Final validation loss sat around `3.51`. The run chewed through about `1.99B` tokens, finished at `244K` steps, and throughput near the end was roughly `93K` tokens per second.

![Training timeline summary from Trackio snapshots](https://media.aroramrinaal.com/ai/first-llm-pre-train/07-training-traces-summary.png)

## The Loss Curves

For the first time I watched loss curves do what all the write-ups claim they do. The train loss was messy, yet the trend was unmistakable.

![Training loss curve for the 124M FineWeb-Edu run](https://media.aroramrinaal.com/ai/first-llm-pre-train/08-train-loss-124m-fineweb-edu-2b-h100.png)

The validation loss was cleaner and around step `242K` it hit its lowest point, and that was the checkpoint I pushed to Hugging Face.

![Validation loss curve for the 124M FineWeb-Edu run](https://media.aroramrinaal.com/ai/first-llm-pre-train/09-val-loss-124m-fineweb-edu-2b-h100.png)

## Publishing The Base Model

Once the run finished, I converted the best checkpoint and pushed the weights to Hugging Face: [mrinaalarora/mrinaal-124m-base](https://huggingface.co/mrinaalarora/mrinaal-124m-base).

![Hugging Face model card for mrinaal-124m-base](https://media.aroramrinaal.com/ai/first-llm-pre-train/10-hf-base-model-card.png)

The model card is deliberately plain. I wrote what the model is and what it is not. GPT-2 scale, but not GPT-2. Trained from scratch on a `2B` token slice of FineWeb-Edu. Uses the GPT-2 tokenizer, but the internals are RoPE, RMSNorm, SwiGLU, no linear biases, and tied embeddings.

Forward pass is: embeddings → transformer blocks → final norm → language modeling head.

```python
class DecoderOnlyTransformer(nn.Module):
    def __init__(self, config: ModelConfig):
        super().__init__()
        self.config = config
        self.token_embedding = nn.Embedding(config.vocab_size, config.n_embd)
        self.blocks = nn.ModuleList([TransformerBlock(config) for _ in range(config.n_layer)])
        self.final_norm = RMSNorm(config.n_embd, config.norm_eps)
        self.lm_head = nn.Linear(config.n_embd, config.vocab_size, bias=False)
        self.token_embedding.weight = self.lm_head.weight
        self.apply(self._init_weights)

    def forward(
        self,
        input_ids: torch.Tensor,
        targets: torch.Tensor | None = None,
    ) -> tuple[torch.Tensor, torch.Tensor | None]:
        x = self.token_embedding(input_ids)
        for block in self.blocks:
            x = block(x)
        logits = self.lm_head(self.final_norm(x))

        loss = None
        if targets is not None:
            loss = F.cross_entropy(logits.view(-1, logits.size(-1)), targets.reshape(-1))
        return logits, loss
```

The first inference samples were not impressive , but that was never the goal. The goal was that random weights had turned into something that could produce coherent autocomplete-style text. The outputs were rough, repetitive, and unmistakably base-model-like.

![Inference sample from the trained 124M base model](https://media.aroramrinaal.com/ai/first-llm-pre-train/11-base-model-inference-sample.png)

## The Continued Pre-Training Follow Up

Once the 2B token base model was finished, I ran a small continued pre-training pass on top of it.

The v2 checkpoint is at [mrinaalarora/mrinaal-124m-base-v2](https://huggingface.co/mrinaalarora/mrinaal-124m-base-v2). It adds another `1B` next-token-prediction tokens on a mixed blend: `50%` FineWeb-Edu dedup, `30%` DCLM baseline, `15%` FineMath, and `5%` Cosmopedia v2.

![Hugging Face model card for mrinaal-124m-base-v2](https://media.aroramrinaal.com/ai/first-llm-pre-train/12-hf-base-v2-model-card.png)

The v2 run was an experiment: what happens if I keep training the same model with a broader but slightly more targeted mix?

## A Small HellaSwag Check

I also ran a HellaSwag eval comparing the `2B` token base model against the continued pre-training checkpoint. The result was not a tidy win. Both models scored `28.44%` overall, only a few points above the `25%` random baseline, but the extra `1B` tokens did not lift the headline number.

![HellaSwag overall accuracy comparison between base and v2](https://media.aroramrinaal.com/ai/first-llm-pre-train/13-hellaswag-base-vs-v2.png)

Continued pre-training definitely changed the model, but this single eval did not demonstrate broad improvement.

![HellaSwag category accuracy comparison between base and v2](https://media.aroramrinaal.com/ai/first-llm-pre-train/14-hellaswag-category-comparison.png)

Still, I view it as progress. I now have a base checkpoint, a continued pre-training checkpoint, and a minimal comparison pipeline. Far from a rigorous eval setup, but it is a loop I can iterate on.

## What I Learned

The biggest takeaway for me is that pre-training is simpler in concept than it looks from the outside. The objective really is just next-token prediction. But every surrounding detail is serious business. Data prep, tokenization, checkpointing, validation splits, metric logging, picking the right checkpoint to upload. None of it is optional.

I also finally understood why researchers obsess over training curves. When the loss drops in a sensible pattern, you can start believing the system is actually learning. 

Scale was the other surprise. `124M` parameters and `2B` tokens is a rounding error next to frontier runs, yet it was large enough that I could feel the real shape of the problem.

## Where This Leaves Me

I am still early in my independent ML study, but this run gave me a lot of confidence. The same loop I just walked through is probably not that different from what frontier labs do when they pre-train their multi-trillion parameter models. Same next-token prediction objective, same checkpointing and validation rituals, same obsession over loss curves. The difference is scale, proprietary data mixes, and architecture tricks they rarely open source. Now I have walked through a small version of the whole thing myself.

## Links

### Models

* [mrinaalarora/mrinaal-124m-base](https://huggingface.co/mrinaalarora/mrinaal-124m-base)
* [mrinaalarora/mrinaal-124m-base-v2](https://huggingface.co/mrinaalarora/mrinaal-124m-base-v2)
* [124M base experiments collection](https://huggingface.co/collections/mrinaalarora/124m-base-experiments)

### Data And Tracking

* [FineWeb-Edu dataset](https://huggingface.co/datasets/HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu)
* [HellaSwag dataset](https://huggingface.co/datasets/Rowan/hellaswag)
* [Trackio dashboard for the 124M run](http://mrinaalarora-trackio.hf.space/?project=first-llm-pre-train&run_ids=7f000508236944f3832545741e830ae7)

### Tools

* [Modal](https://modal.com)
* [Trackio](https://github.com/gradio-app/trackio)