AI Glossary
Dense model
What does “Dense model” mean?
Dense model: In a dense model, every parameter takes part in processing every token. This is the traditional setup and stands in contrast to sparse designs such as mixture of experts, which activate only part of the network at a time.

What is an example of “Dense model”?
Comparing models by parameter count can mislead: a dense model and a mixture-of-experts model with similar totals can differ greatly in compute per token.