ngrok Blog Explains the Deep Link Between Data Compression and LLMs
mitsuhiko · x · 2026-08-12
Armin Ronacher shared a highly digestible technical blog post from ngrok that highlights a fundamental connection: data compressors and Large Language Models (LLMs) are essentially solving the exact same problem—compression is prediction.
The article breaks down the basics of compression to build up to this insight:
- Minification: Stripping comments, whitespace, and shortening variables reduces file size, but it's just surface-level shrinking.
- Redundancy elimination: True data compression relies on identifying and condensing redundant patterns (like consecutive repeating characters).
Using these foundational concepts, the post seamlessly transitions to language modeling, providing a highly accessible explanation of how LLMs actually work under the hood.
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