Math GPT-OSS Model (32 Experts)

Project: https://amanpriyanshu.github.io/GPT-OSS-MoE-ExpertFingerprinting/

👥 Follow the Authors

Aman Priyanshu LinkedIn Twitter Website

Supriti Vijay LinkedIn Twitter Website

Introduction

This is a pruned variant of OpenAI's GPT-OSS-20B model, reduced to 32 experts per layer based on activation patterns from the AmanPriyanshu/GPT-OSS-20B MoE Expert Activations dataset. We analyzed router decisions across evaluation benchmarks to identify and retain experts most relevant for math tasks.

⚠️ Experimental Model: This is an experimental pruned model that may not work well - check the examples below to see if the outputs meet your needs before use.

This pruning approach reduces the model size while attempting to preserve performance on the target domain.

Model Architecture & Statistics

Metric Value
Base Model openai/gpt-oss-20b
Architecture Mixture-of-Experts Transformer
Total Parameters ~20.9B (pruned from 21B)
Original Experts per Layer 32
Pruned Experts per Layer 32
Layers 24
Top-k Routing 4
Context Length 128K tokens
Attention Heads 64 (Query), 8 (Key-Value)
Residual Dimension 2880
Attention Pattern Alternating dense & sliding window (128 tokens)
Positional Encoding RoPE (Rotary Position Embedding)
Normalization RMSNorm
Precision BF16
License Apache 2.0
Specialization Math

Pruning Methodology

What is Expert Pruning?

Mixture-of-Experts models contain multiple specialized sub-networks (experts) per layer. During inference, only a subset of experts are activated for each token. Expert pruning involves:

  1. Analyzing Usage Patterns: Tracking which experts activate most frequently for specific tasks
  2. Removing Underutilized Experts: Discarding experts with low activation rates for the target domain
  3. Preserving Router Functionality: Maintaining the routing mechanism with fewer available experts

Our Approach

  • Data-Driven Selection: Used activation patterns from math evaluation tasks
  • Systematic Reduction: Reduced from 32 to 32 experts per layer
  • No Retraining: Direct removal without additional training steps

Performance & Applications

Pruning Benefits

  • Smaller Memory Footprint: 100.0% of original expert parameters
  • Reduced Computational Load: Fewer routing decisions during inference
  • Focused Capabilities: Retains experts relevant to math tasks

Use Cases

  • Speculative Decoding: Draft model for full GPT-OSS-20B
  • Resource-Constrained Deployment: Edge devices, mobile applications
  • Research: Study expert specialization in MoE models
  • Fine-tuning: Smaller base model for domain adaptation

Note: Performance may vary depending on how well the pruned experts match your specific use case.

Motivation & Expert Selection

This mathematics-focused model utilizes experts that exhibited strong performance on mathematical reasoning tasks from MMLU mathematics subjects and quantitative sections. These experts excel at mathematical computation, proof strategies, and logical reasoning.

The expert selection process utilized our comprehensive analysis of router activation patterns across multiple evaluation benchmarks:

  • GPQA: Graduate-level questions in physics, chemistry, biology (Diamond & Expert subsets)
  • MMLU/MMLU-Pro: Comprehensive knowledge across 57+ subjects including science, medicine, law
  • SORRY-Bench: Safety evaluation across harmful content categories
  • Tulu3: Persona-driven instruction following with verifiable constraints
  • Polyglot-or-Not: Multilingual factual completion tasks

By identifying experts that consistently activated for math tasks, we created this specialized model that maintains domain expertise while significantly reducing computational requirements from 32 to 32 experts per layer.

Dataset & Analysis Foundation

This model is based on analysis from the GPT-OSS-20B MoE Expert Activations dataset available at: 🔗 https://huggingface.co/datasets/AmanPriyanshu/GPT-OSS-20B-MoE-expert-activations

The dataset contains router activation patterns from OpenAI's GPT-OSS-20B model across diverse evaluation benchmarks, enabling the creation of these domain-optimized models through systematic expert pruning.

Pruning Methodology

Our approach involves:

  1. Activation Analysis: Comprehensive evaluation of expert usage patterns across domain-specific tasks
  2. Expert Ranking: Identification of the most frequently activated experts for target domains
  3. Systematic Pruning: Reduction from 32 to 32 experts while preserving router functionality
  4. Quality Validation: Testing to ensure maintained performance on target tasks

This is a direct pruning approach - no additional training was performed. The model inherits all capabilities from the original GPT-OSS-20B with focused expert selection.

Usage

CPU Inference

from transformers import AutoModelForCausalLM, AutoTokenizer
import torch

# Load the specialized model on CPU
model = AutoModelForCausalLM.from_pretrained(
    "AmanPriyanshu/gpt-oss-20.9b-specialized-math-pruned-moe-only-32-experts", 
    torch_dtype=torch.bfloat16, 
    device_map="cpu", 
    trust_remote_code=True
)
tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained("AmanPriyanshu/gpt-oss-20.9b-specialized-math-pruned-moe-only-32-experts")

# Generate with the model
messages = [
    {"role": "user", "content": "Solve this equation: 2x + 5 = 17. Show your work step by step."}
]

inputs = tokenizer.apply_chat_template(
    messages, 
    add_generation_prompt=True, 
    return_tensors="pt", 
    return_dict=True,
    reasoning_effort="medium"
)

# Ensure inputs are on the same device as model
inputs = {k: v.to(model.device) for k, v in inputs.items()}

outputs = model.generate(
    **inputs, 
    max_new_tokens=512,
    do_sample=True,
    temperature=0.1,
    top_p=0.9,
    pad_token_id=tokenizer.eos_token_id,
    eos_token_id=tokenizer.eos_token_id
)

# Decode only the generated part
input_length = inputs['input_ids'].shape[1]
response_tokens = outputs[0][input_length:]
response = tokenizer.decode(response_tokens, skip_special_tokens=True)
print(response)

Apple Silicon (MPS) Inference

from transformers import AutoModelForCausalLM, AutoTokenizer
import torch

# Check MPS availability and load model
device = "mps" if torch.backends.mps.is_available() else "cpu"

model = AutoModelForCausalLM.from_pretrained(
    "AmanPriyanshu/gpt-oss-20.9b-specialized-math-pruned-moe-only-32-experts", 
    torch_dtype=torch.float16,  # Better MPS compatibility
    device_map=device, 
    trust_remote_code=True,
    low_cpu_mem_usage=True
)
tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained("AmanPriyanshu/gpt-oss-20.9b-specialized-math-pruned-moe-only-32-experts")

# Generate with the model
messages = [
    {"role": "user", "content": "Solve this equation: 2x + 5 = 17. Show your work step by step."}
]

inputs = tokenizer.apply_chat_template(
    messages, 
    add_generation_prompt=True, 
    return_tensors="pt", 
    return_dict=True,
    reasoning_effort="medium"
)

# Move inputs to model device
inputs = {k: v.to(model.device) if isinstance(v, torch.Tensor) else v for k, v in inputs.items()}

# Use torch.no_grad for MPS stability
with torch.no_grad():
    outputs = model.generate(
        **inputs, 
        max_new_tokens=512,
        do_sample=True,
        temperature=0.1,
        top_p=0.9,
        pad_token_id=tokenizer.eos_token_id,
        eos_token_id=tokenizer.eos_token_id,
        use_cache=True
    )

# Decode only the generated part
input_length = inputs['input_ids'].shape[1]
response_tokens = outputs[0][input_length:]
response = tokenizer.decode(response_tokens, skip_special_tokens=True)
print(response)

GPU Inference

For CUDA GPU inference, the models work with minimal modifications from the CPU example above. Simply change:

device_map="auto"  # Will automatically use GPU if available
torch_dtype=torch.bfloat16  # or torch.float16

Model Examples

The following examples demonstrate the model's performance on math tasks:

Example 1

Question: Solve this equation: 2x + 5 = 17. Show your work step by step.

Response:

<|channel|>analysis<|message|>We need to solve linear equation. Provide steps.<|end|><|start|>assistant<|channel|>final<|message|>**Equation to solve**

\[
2x + 5 = 17
\]

---

### Step 1: Isolate the term that contains \(x\)

Subtract \(5\) from both sides of the equation to move the constant term to the right side.

\[
\begin{aligned}
2x + 5 - 5 &= 17 - 5 \\
2x &= 12
\end{aligned}
\]

---

### Step 2: Solve for \(x\)

Divide both sides by the coefficient of \(x\), which is \(2\).

\[
\begin{aligned}
\frac{2x}{2} &= \frac{12}{2} \\
x &= 6
\end{aligned}
\]

---

### Solution

\[
\boxed{x = 6}
\]

**Verification**

Plug \(x = 6\) back into the original equation:

\[
2(6) + 5 = 12 + 5 = 17
\]

The left‑hand side equals the right‑hand side, confirming that \(x = 6\) is indeed the correct solution.<|return|>

Example 2

Question: What is the Pythagorean theorem and how is it used?

Response:

<|channel|>analysis<|message|>Need explain theorem and usage.<|end|><|start|>assistant<|channel|>final<|message|>**Pythagorean Theorem**

> In a right‑angled triangle, the square of the length of the hypotenuse (the side opposite the right angle) equals the sum of the squares of the lengths of the other two sides.

Mathematically:

\[
c^{2}=a^{2}+b^{2}
\]

where  
- \(c\) = length of the hypotenuse,  
- \(a\) and \(b\) = lengths of the two legs.

---

### How It Is Used

| Purpose | How the theorem helps | Example |
|---------|-----------------------|---------|
| **Finding a missing side** | Rearrange the formula to solve for the unknown side. | A ladder leans against a wall. The ladder is 10 ft long and the base is 6 ft from the wall. Find the height: \(h=\sqrt{10^{2}-6^{2}}=8\) ft. |
| **Checking right‑angle** | Verify that \(c^{2}=a^{2}+b^{2}\). | A triangle with sides 3, 4, 5 satisfies \(5^{2}=3^{2}+4^{2}\), so it is right‑angled. |
| **Distance between two points** | Use the distance formula, which is a direct application of the theorem in coordinate geometry. | Distance between \((x_1,y_1)\) and \((x_2,y_2)\): \(\sqrt{(x_2-x_1)^2+(y_2-y_1)^2}\). |
| **Engineering & construction** | Determine lengths of beams, angles, or structural elements that must form right angles. | Calculating the diagonal support needed in a rectangular frame. |
| **Navigation & surveying** | Compute straight‑line distances when only horizontal and vertical components are known. | A hiker moves 200 m east and 150 m north; straight‑line distance = \(\sqrt{200^2+150^2}\approx 250\) m. |
| **Computer graphics** | Compute pixel distances, collision detection, or shading calculations. | Finding the distance between two vertices in a 2D sprite. |
| **Physics** | Resolve vectors into perpendicular components or find resultant magnitudes. | A force of 10 N at 30° to the horizontal

Example 3

Question: Calculate the area of a circle with radius 7 meters.

Response:

<|channel|>analysis<|message|>Need area πr^2 = π*49 ≈ 153.938.<|end|><|start|>assistant<|channel|>final<|message|>The area \(A\) of a circle is given by

\[
A = \pi r^{2}
\]

where \(r\) is the radius.

For a radius of \(7\) m:

\[
A = \pi (7\,\text{m})^{2}
   = \pi \times 49\,\text{m}^{2}
   = 49\pi \,\text{m}^{2}
\]

Using \(\pi \approx 3.14159\):

\[
A \approx 49 \times 3.14159 \;\text{m}^{2}
   \approx 153.938 \;\text{m}^{2}
\]

So the area of the circle is **\(49\pi\) square meters (about 154 m²)**.<|return|>

Citation

If you use this model in your research, please cite:

@misc{priyanshu2025gptoss,
  title={{GPT-OSS MoE Expert Fingerprinting: Analyzing Expert Activation Patterns in Mixture of Experts Models}},
  author={Priyanshu, Aman and Vijay, Supriti},
  year={2025},
  howpublished={\url{https://amanpriyanshu.github.io/GPT-OSS-MoE-ExpertFingerprinting/}},
  note={Interactive analysis tool for expert activation patterns in MoE architectures}
}

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