Frontier LLM Architectures

22 notes in this sphere.

• Frontier LLM Architectures MOC

  Frontier LLM Architectures MOC This is the map for a college course level learning sphere on frontier LLM architectures. The goal is not only to know model name…

• Architecture Concept Graph Frontier LLMs

  Architecture Concept Graph Frontier LLMs This note explains how the whole frontier LLM stack connects. The main mistake beginners make is studying topics as iso…

• Attention Mechanics and KV Cache

  Attention Mechanics and KV Cache Attention is the core token mixing mechanism in transformer LLMs. The KV cache is the key serving trick that makes autoregressi…

• Course Roadmap Frontier LLM Research

  Course Roadmap Frontier LLM Research This is a self study course for learning enough about frontier LLM architectures to participate in serious research convers…

• Data Tokenization and Pretraining Objective

  Data Tokenization and Pretraining Objective Architecture is only half the story. Frontier LLM behavior is strongly shaped by data, tokenization, objective, filt…

• Evaluation Benchmarks and Scientific Method

  Evaluation Benchmarks and Scientific Method Evaluation is how LLM research knows whether it made progress. Bad evals create fake progress. Good evals reveal cap…

• Frontier Model Case Studies

  Frontier Model Case Studies This note connects architecture ideas to public model reports. Treat these as case studies in research tradeoffs, not as a complete …

• Frontier Model Systems and Inference

  Frontier Model Systems and Inference Frontier architecture is constrained by hardware. A design that looks elegant on paper may lose if it is slow, memory heavy…

• Glossary Frontier LLM Architectures

  Glossary Frontier LLM Architectures Active Parameters The number of parameters used for a token's forward pass. In MoE models, total parameters can be much larg…

• Implementation Roadmap to Frontier Lab Readiness

  Implementation Roadmap to Frontier Lab Readiness This note converts the learning sphere into a portfolio path. The goal is not to build a frontier model alone. …

• Long Context and Efficient Sequence Models

  Long Context and Efficient Sequence Models Long context modeling asks how LLMs can read, retain, retrieve, and reason over very long sequences without attention…

• Math and ML Foundations for Frontier LLMs

  Math and ML Foundations for Frontier LLMs This note lists the background you need to read frontier LLM papers without feeling like every paragraph is a trapdoor…

• Mixture of Experts Architectures

  Mixture of Experts Architectures Mixture of Experts, or MoE, is one way frontier models scale parameter count without activating all parameters for every token.…

• Open Research Questions Frontier LLM Architectures

  Open Research Questions Frontier LLM Architectures This note turns the learning sphere into research taste. A frontier researcher is always asking which bottlen…

• Paper Reading Ladder Frontier LLMs

  Paper Reading Ladder Frontier LLMs This is the reading sequence for the frontier LLM architecture sphere. Prefer reading papers actively: reconstruct the mechan…

• Post Training Alignment and Reasoning

  Post Training Alignment and Reasoning Pretraining creates broad capability. Post training shapes how that capability is elicited: instruction following, helpful…

• Research Memo Template for LLM Papers

  Research Memo Template for LLM Papers Use this for every serious paper. The goal is to move from "I read it" to "I can reason from it." How To Use It 1. Fill it…

• Researcher Skill Stack for Frontier Labs

  Researcher Skill Stack for Frontier Labs Frontier labs hire for more than "knows transformers." They want people who can turn uncertainty into experiments, use …

• Scaling Laws and Compute Optimal Training

  Scaling Laws and Compute Optimal Training Scaling laws are empirical rules that relate model loss to compute, parameter count, and data size. They matter becaus…

• Training Optimization and Stability Deep Dive

  Training Optimization and Stability Deep Dive Training frontier scale models is a controlled fight against instability, inefficiency, and bad extrapolation from…

• Transformer Block Anatomy

  Transformer Block Anatomy The transformer block is the core unit of modern frontier LLMs. Most frontier models are still recognizably stacks of decoder only tra…

• Transformer Math and Implementation Deep Dive

  Transformer Math and Implementation Deep Dive This note is the bridge from "I understand the diagram" to "I can implement, debug, and reason about the block." P…