Hafedh Hichri

Hafedh Hichri, also known online as not-lain, is a machine learning engineer at mermory and a Hugging Face Fellow. He develops custom AI models and integrates them with Hugging Face's platform, sharing his knowledge through blog posts on topics like training custom AI models and building RAG chatbots.

Hafedh enjoys creating open-source software and is passionate about making complex research accessible. His interests include machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision.

He studied Computer Science at the National School of Electronics and Telecommunications of Sfax (ENET'Com), and has contributed to libraries major AI libraries in the field such as transformers, unsloth, autotiktokenizers, and multiple others.

Hafedh's goal is to contribute to the advancement of open-source AI and make machine learning more accessible.

Blogs

I write about machine learning, natural language processing, and open-source software mostly in HuggingFace. Here are some of my recent blog posts:

• 🔭 KV Caching Explained: Optimizing Transformer Inference Efficiency A deep dive into the concept of KV caching in transformers, explaining its significance and providing practical examples.
• 🔍 Mastering Tensor Dimensions in Transformers A comprehensive guide to understanding tensor dimensions in transformers, with practical examples and tips for effective manipulation.
• 🚀 PyTorchModelHubMixin: Bridging the Gap for Custom AI Models on Hugging Face A detailed exploration of the PyTorchModelHubMixin class, showcasing its role in integrating custom AI models with the Hugging Face ecosystem.
• 🧠 RAG using huggingface tools A step-by-step guide to building a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) chatbot using Hugging Face tools, with practical examples and code snippets.
• 🚀 Image-based search engine A tutorial on creating an image-based search engine using Hugging Face tools, with practical examples and code snippets.

Open Source

Most of my work comes in this field the form of contributions to other libraries. A couple of notable libraries I contributed to are:

• 🤗 Transformers
• 🦥 Unsloth
• Gradio
• Chonkie
• 🤗 HuggingFace.js
• fal

I also maintain a couple of libraries:

• Loadimg
• Pxia
• Chonkie [collaborator]

I also contributed to integrating several models with Hugging Face using PyTorchModelHubMixin, including:

• BiRefNet
• BEN2
• MatAnyone
• anime-seg
• araclip
• RMBG-1.4
• SwarmFormer

Invited Talks and News

• On April 27, 2025, I gave a talk at the Genesis Labs-INSAT about AI in Healthcare [slides].