Learning path

Breaking the Token Barrier: Exploring Speculative Decoding

Skill Level
Intermediate
Duration 40 minutes
Updated Nov 3, 2026

About this learning path

Why does a fast GPU still write tokens one at a time? This learning path explains the memory bottleneck behind LLM inference and how speculative decoding beats it without changing a single answer. Watch two short videos, read how draft, verify and accept works, then explore a real recorded run in a hands-on, on-demand lab.

Your instructors

Prerequisites

  1. A basic idea of what a large language model is. No GPU, coding or math background needed.

What you'll learn

  1. Explain why LLM generation speed is limited by memory, not compute
  2. Describe how a drafter and a target model work together in draft-and-verify cycles
  3. Explain why speculative decoding keeps the output unchanged
  4. Predict which workloads gain most from speculative decoding
  5. Explain why the speedup shrinks on a busy server