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IBM - Dense - verified

Run IBM Granite 4.2 8B locally

IBM Granite 4.2 8B is a 8.8B dense model from IBM with a 131K-token context window, released under Apache 2.0 (commercial use is allowed); the smallest listed download is 4.9 GB, the 4bit MLX build from ibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b-q4-mlx.

Official weights: ibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b

Total params
8.8B
Architecture
Dense
Context
131K
Smallest download
4.9 GB

Fits in

Smallest download at most 85% of memory

Downloads

The official weights and every quantization listed for this model, with file sizes from Hugging Face.

IBM Granite 4.2 8B downloads and file sizes
DownloadFormatSizeRepo
Official weightsBF1617.6 GBibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b
Q4_K_MGGUF5.3 GBibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b-GGUF
Q8_0GGUF9.3 GBibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b-GGUF
4bitSmallest listedMLX4.9 GBibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b-q4-mlx

GB is decimal: 1 GB = 10^9 bytes. Add memory for the context and the operating system on top of the file size.

Run it

Copied verbatim from the page linked under each command. Server commands from model cards often assume a multi-GPU node; check the flags before you run them.

Ollama

Terminal
ollama run granite4.2:8b

Source: ollama.com/library/granite4.2:30b

vLLM

Terminal
vllm serve ibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b \
    --served-model-name granite-4.2-8b \
    --dtype bfloat16 \
    --max-model-len 131072 \
    --reasoning-parser granite_thinking_parser \
    --reasoning-parser-plugin ./granite_thinking_parser.py \
    --tool-call-parser qwen3_coder \
    --enable-auto-tool-choice

Source: huggingface.co/ibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b

SGLang

Terminal
python3 -m sglang.launch_server \
    --model-path ibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b \
    --dtype bfloat16 \
    --context-length 131072 \
    --reasoning-parser auto \
    --tool-call-parser auto

Source: huggingface.co/ibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b

Not sure which runtime to use? Compare local LLM runtimes by platform, API and features.

License

License
Apache 2.0apache-2.0
Commercial use
Commercial use: YesCommercial use is allowed.
Gated download
No. The files download directly.

Worth knowing

Thinking is on by default (enable_thinking=False disables it), and the vLLM command loads granite_thinking_parser.py, which ships in the repo; the card lists 128K native context with extension to 512K.

Released (per the model card).

FAQ

How big is the IBM Granite 4.2 8B download?

The official BF16 weights in ibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b are 17.6 GB. The smallest listed download is 4.9 GB, the 4bit MLX build from ibm-granite/granite-4.2-8b-q4-mlx. Plan for more memory than the file size: the context (KV cache) and the operating system need room too.

Can I use IBM Granite 4.2 8B commercially?

IBM Granite 4.2 8B is released under Apache 2.0, and commercial use is allowed. The license text is at https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.

How much memory do I need for IBM Granite 4.2 8B?

By this directory's rule of thumb it fits in 8 GB and up: the smallest listed download, 4.9 GB, is at most 85% of 8 GB, which leaves room for the context and the operating system.

How do I run IBM Granite 4.2 8B with Ollama?

Run "ollama run granite4.2:8b", as shown at https://ollama.com/library/granite4.2:30b. The Ollama library lists the granite4.2:8b tag at 5.3GB.

What is the context length of IBM Granite 4.2 8B?

131,072 tokens. A longer context needs more memory for the KV cache, so you can run with a shorter one when memory is tight.

Sources

Last verified from the pages below.

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