Developers have introduced ext-infer — an extension for PHP 8.3+ that allows performing language model inference and generating embeddings directly within the PHP process, eliminating the need for third-party Python microservices.
What Happened
The ext-infer extension has been released, based on llama.cpp and utilizing Rust via ext-php-rs to ensure high performance. The tool allows for the implementation of RAG pipelines and semantic search natively, supporting models in GGUF format directly within the PHP environment.
Context
Traditionally, integrating LLMs into web applications requires deploying additional infrastructure layers, such as Python services or calling external APIs. Ext-infer aims to decentralize the AI stack, allowing the capabilities of modern models to be used within a standard web stack.
Why It Matters for the Industry
For the industry, this is an important step toward the decentralization of AI infrastructure. Web languages like PHP are gaining the ability to become full participants in the AI ecosystem, integrating local inference without complicating the architecture with additional microservices.
Why It Matters for Users
PHP developers gain a tool for rapid integration of AI features with minimal latency. This simplifies prototyping RAG systems and allows running local models on standard web servers without the need to set up complex Python environments or pay for external APIs.
Sources
Author
Look at AI, Editorial Team