What it does
MiniMind-V is a very small vision-language model, an AI that can look at an image and talk about it. Its smallest version is a tiny fraction of the size of big chat models.
The project includes every step: cleaning the data, training and testing. Its author says one training stage takes about two hours on a single home graphics card, at a rental cost of about three yuan.
It is meant as both a working model and a hands-on tutorial for learning how these models are built. The main README is in Chinese, with an English version available.
Who it's for
Students and hobbyists who want to understand and train a picture-reading AI model from scratch.
Can I use it without coding?
Developers only. Training and running it needs Python and command-line work. An online demo is linked for trying it. New to this? Start here.
Can I run it?
- Cost
- FreeNothing to pay or sign up for.
- Runs on
- Linux
- Computer
- Works best on a powerful computer or one with a graphics card (GPU)
- Privacy
- Runs on your own device: your data stays with you
- API key
- Not needed
Try it
- Try the online demo its author links to on ModelScope.
- To train or run it yourself, follow the step-by-step quick start using a computer with a graphics card.
Using Claude Code, Cursor or another AI coding assistant? Paste the prompt and it will walk you through the setup.New to this?
Before you install
- Only download from the official GitHub page. Copies with similar names exist for many popular projects.
- License (Apache-2.0): Permissive: free to use, change and share, including for business.
- More on staying safe