A Strategic Coordination Framework of Small LLMs Matches Large LLMs in
  Data Synthesis
Authors: name: Xin Gao, name: Qizhi Pei, name: Zinan Tang, name: Yu Li, name: Honglin Lin, name: Jiang Wu, name: Conghui He, name: Lijun Wu

While data synthesis and distillation are promising strategies to enhance
small language models, current approaches heavily rely on Large Language Models
(LLMs), which suffer from high computational costs, environmental inefficiency,
and potential biases inherited from monolithic architectures. In contrast,
smaller LLMs are more accessible and sustainable, but their individual
capabilities often fall short in generating high-quality, diverse, and reliable
data. Inspired by collaborative human processes (e.g., peer review), we propose
a multiple small LLMs involved framework, GRA, that aggregates specialized
roles across small LLMs to iterative refinement and quality control typically
achieved by a single large LLM. In this collaborative framework, multiple small
LLMs assume distinct roles-Generator, Reviewer, and Adjudicator-to simulate a
peer-review-inspired data synthesis pipeline. The Generator proposes initial
data samples, the Reviewer critiques their quality and diversity, and the
Adjudicator resolves conflicts to finalize the output. By decomposing the
synthesis process into specialized sub-tasks, collaborative small LLMs can
achieve data-level parity with large LLM-based distillation. Through
experiments across multiple benchmarks, we demonstrate that GRA-produced data
matches or exceeds the quality of single large LLM outputs, e.g.,
Qwen-2.5-72B-Instruct. Our results challenge the necessity of monolithic large
models for high-quality data synthesis, advocating instead for strategic
coordination of smaller agents. Our datasets, models, and code are publicly
available at https://github.com/GX-XinGao/GRA.