RCTM

Closed weights University of Oxford October 2013

No estimate

No hardware requirements for this model

The weights for this model have not been published, so it cannot be downloaded or run on your own hardware at any size. It is reachable only through its provider, and no graphics card changes that.

On record

Full specification

Everything on record for this model. Most of it describes how it was trained rather than how it runs — useful context for judging how much work went into it, and how it compares with models built at a different scale.

Origin

Who built this model, where, and when it was published.

Organisation
University of Oxford
Organisation type
Academia
Country
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Published
1 October 2013
Authors
Nal Kalchbrenner, Phil Blunsom

What it does

The problem areas the model was built for. A model can carry several of each.

Domain
Language
Task
Translation

Size

How large the model is and how much data it was trained on. Parameters are the figure that decides whether it fits on a given graphics card.

Training data
4,500,000 tokens

"The English sentences contain about 4.1M words"

Training compute

The arithmetic performed to train the model, measured in floating-point operations. It is a measure of what the training run cost, not of how fast the finished model answers you.

Training compute
9.3 × 10¹⁵ FLOP

"The training of an RCTM takes about 15 hours on 3 multicore CPUs" Given the publication year, a rough estimate for the CPU performance is 16 FP32 per cycle, 4 cores, clock speed 4GHz, utilization of 0.3. 15*60*60*3*4*12*4000000000*0.3=9331200000000000=9.33e15

How it was established
Hardware

The training run

What it physically took to train: which chips, how many, for how long, and what that drew from the wall.

Chips used
3
Wall-clock time
15 hours

The training of an RCTM takes about 15 hours on 3 multicore CPUs.

How it is classified

Labels the source dataset applies when tracking notable models, and how confident it is in the entry.

Why it is tracked
Highly cited
Record confidence
Likely

Sources

Where this record came from and when it was last checked.

Reference
Recurrent Continuous Translation Models
Last updated
28 November 2025

What the numbers mean

What this model is

RCTM was published by University of Oxford, in the country recorded as United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, during October 2013. The category the publisher falls under is academia.

It works in the domain of Language, and is recorded as performing the task of translation.

Its weights were never published, so it can only be reached through its provider. No graphics card changes that.

Training and provenance

Training it took a computation budget of roughly 9.3 × 10¹⁵ FLOP. That figure measures what producing the model cost, and has no bearing on how fast it answers.

The training set ran to roughly 4,500,000 tokens of text.

Its inclusion criterion: highly cited.

Answers

RCTM — common questions

01

RCTM— what GPU do I need to run it?

None. This is a closed model — its weights were never published, so it cannot be downloaded or run on your own hardware at any price. It is reachable only through its provider.

02

RCTM— is it open source?

The licensing was never recorded in our source data. We treat unstated licensing as closed, because an unrecorded licence is not one to rely on.

03

RCTM— how many parameters does it have?

No parameter count has been published for it, which is why no memory or speed figure appears on this page.

04

RCTM— who created it?

It was published by University of Oxford, based in United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, an organisation categorised as academia.

05

RCTM— when was it released?

It was published in October 2013. Capability per parameter has improved considerably since, so a newer model of the same size is often the better use of the same hardware.

06

RCTM— what is it used for?

It works in the domain of Language, and is recorded as handling the task of translation. A model can carry several of each, so these are the areas it was built for rather than a limit on what it will attempt.

07

RCTM— how much compute was used to train it?

Training consumed around 9.3 × 10¹⁵ FLOP. That measures what producing the model cost and says nothing about how quickly it answers once trained — inference speed comes from memory bandwidth, not from the training budget.

Source

Original publication

Record last updated 28 November 2025

The other direction

Looking at it from the other side?

This page starts from the model. If you already own a card and want to know everything it will run, start from the hardware instead.