Foundations of Local Large Language models (Coursera)

Offered by Duke University,
Foundations of Local Large Language models (Coursera)

By the end of this course, a learner will have a solid understanding of Large Language Models running locally. You'll be able to setup a local environment using powerful tooling to run different LLMs and interact with them both with a web interface as well as with APIs.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see Coursera's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

You will explore other tools and programming languages to interact with these LLMs and using LLMs via via Hugging Face Candle and Mozilla llamafile.

What you'll learn

  • Local Large Language Models (LLMs)
  • Tools for running LLMs locally like Llamafile

Syllabus

Local LLMOps
This week, you will learn mitigation strategies, evaluate task performance, and operationalize workflows by identifying risks in notebooks and deploying an LLM application.

Production Workflows and Performance of LLMs
This week, you will explore different types of generative AI applications, including API-based, embedded model, and multi-model systems. You'll learn the fundamentals of building robust applications using techniques like Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to improve context. Through hands-on exercises, you'll gain experience evaluating real-world performance of large language models using Elo ratings coded in Python, Rust, R, and Julia. Then you'll explore production LLM workflows using tools like skypilot, Lorax, and Ludwig for fine-tuning models like Mistral-7b. Finally, you'll gain hands-on experience testing an application locally and deploying it on the cloud.

Responsible Generative AI
This week you will learn foundations of generative AI and responsible deployment strategies to benefit from the latest advancements while maintaining safety, accuracy, and oversight. By directly applying concepts through hands-on labs and peer discussions, you will gain practical experience putting AI into production.

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Exploring AI Possibilities (Coursera) Coursera
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

Exploring AI Possibilities (Coursera)

This course on Exploring AI Possibilities for Decision Makers explores the growing use of AI across disciplines and its potential benefits and challenges. The course covers necessary context, such as discussing what AI is, how it works, and key definitions in AI. Through exploring the many AI possibilities at your fingertips, you will build leadership skills for helping your business or community work more efficiently, creatively, and ethically.

Nov 16th 2026
1 Week
Microsoft 365 Copilot: Personal Productivity for All (Coursera) Coursera
Vanderbilt University

Microsoft 365 Copilot: Personal Productivity for All (Coursera)

Dive into the next wave of digital productivity with our course centered on Microsoft 365 Copilot. As impactful as the smartphone revolution, Microsoft 365 Copilot is poised to redefine how we approach myriad tasks, bringing the nuanced capabilities of generative AI to your fingertips. With this course, discover how to leverage this powerful assistant in your daily routine, transforming every challenge into an opportunity for excellence.

Nov 16th 2026
1 Week
Avoiding AI Harm (Coursera) Coursera
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

Avoiding AI Harm (Coursera)

This course is designed for those in roles with decision making power, to help them understand major topics to consider for using and developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) responsibly, including popular Generative AI tools like ChatGPT and others. It covers real-world examples of situations where AI was used in variety of fields and situations in ways hat revealed ethical concerns. Strategies are suggested to avoid doing harm working with AI, including a framework for working responsibly with AI.

Nov 16th 2026
1 Week
AI-Enhanced Presentations Captivating Audiences with TOME (Coursera) Coursera
Coursera Instructor Network

AI-Enhanced Presentations Captivating Audiences with TOME (Coursera)

AI analyzes content, suggests visuals, and recommends layouts, elevating your presentations to the next level. It's like having a design assistant at your fingertips. This one-hour course is for those interested in quickly creating slide decks with generative AI. Learn to use Tome AI to generate a slide structure overview and to incorporate text from a document into the slides.

Nov 16th 2026
1 Week
Functions, Tools and Agents with LangChain (Coursera) Coursera
DeepLearning.AI

Functions, Tools and Agents with LangChain (Coursera)

The landscape of LLMs and the libraries that support them has evolved rapidly in recent months. This course is designed to keep you ahead of these changes. You’ll explore new advancements like ChatGPT’s function calling capability, and build a conversational agent using a new syntax called LangChain Expression Language (LCEL) for tasks like tagging, extraction, tool selection, and routing.

Nov 16th 2026
1 Week
ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers (Coursera) Coursera
DeepLearning.AI

ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers (Coursera)

Go beyond the chat box. Use API access to leverage LLMs into your own applications, and learn to build a custom chatbot. In ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers, you will learn how to use a large language model (LLM) to quickly build new and powerful applications. Using the OpenAI API, you’ll be able to quickly build capabilities that learn to innovate and create value in ways that were cost-prohibitive, highly technical, or simply impossible before now.

Nov 16th 2026
1 Week
Exam Prep AI-102: Microsoft Azure AI Engineer Associate (Coursera) Coursera
Whizlabs

Exam Prep AI-102: Microsoft Azure AI Engineer Associate (Coursera)

The AI-102: Designing and Implementing a Microsoft Azure AI Solution certification exam tests the candidate’s experience and knowledge of the AI solutions that make the most of Azure Cognitive Services and Azure services. In addition, the exam also tests the candidate's ability to implement this knowledge by participating in all phases of AI solutions development—from defining requirements, and design to development, deployment, integration, maintenance, performance tuning, and monitoring.

Nov 16th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Introduction to Midjourney (Coursera) Coursera
Edureka

Introduction to Midjourney (Coursera)

Welcome to the Introduction to MidJourney course, where you'll begin a journey to gain practical skills in AI art generation and harness the capabilities of Generative AI for creating images. Throughout this short course, you'll explore the many ways to generate a wide variety of images, from realistic to abstract to surreal, with MidJourney and delve into its various features and functionalities.

Nov 16th 2026
1 Week
Machine Learning for All (Coursera) Coursera
University of London

Machine Learning for All (Coursera)

Machine Learning, often called Artificial Intelligence or AI, is one of the most exciting areas of technology at the moment. We see daily news stories that herald new breakthroughs in facial recognition technology, self driving cars or computers that can have a conversation just like a real person. Machine Learning technology is set to revolutionise almost any area of human life and work, and so will affect all our lives, and so you are likely to want to find out more about it.

Nov 16th 2026
4 Weeks