Training Zamba: A Hybrid Model Master Class with Zyphra's Quentin Anthony

"The Cognitive Revolution" | AI Builders, Researchers, and Live Player Analysis

In this episode of The Cognitive Revolution, Nathan dives deep into the world of state space models with returning co-host Jason Meaux and special guest Quentin Anthony, Head of Model Training at Zyphra. Explore the cutting-edge Zamba 2-7b model, which combines selective state space and attention mechanisms. Uncover practical insights on model training, architectural choices, and the challenges of scaling AI. From learning schedules to hybrid architectures, loss metrics to context length extension, this technical discussion covers it all. Don't miss this in-depth conversation on the future of personalized, on-device AI.

Check out more about Zyphra and Jason Meaux here:

Zyphra's website: https://www.zyphra.com

Zamba2-7B Blog: https://www.zyphra.com/post/zamba2-7b

Zamba2 GitHub: https://github.com/Zyphra/Zamba2

Tree attention: https://www.zyphra.com/post/tree-attention-topology-aware-decoding-for-long-context-attention-on-gpu-clusters

Jason's Meaux Twitter: https://x.com/KamaraiCode

Jason's Meaux website: https://www.statespace.info

Be notified early when Turpentine's drops new publication: https://www.turpentine.co/exclusiveaccess

SPONSORS:

Weights & Biases RAG++: Advanced training for building production-ready RAG applications. Learn from experts to overcome LLM challenges, evaluate systematically, and integrate advanced features. Includes free Cohere credits. Visit https://wandb.me/cr to start the RAG++ course today.

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CHAPTERS:

(00:00:00) Teaser

(00:00:42) About the Show

(00:01:05) About the Episode

(00:03:09) Introducing Zyphra

(00:07:28) Personalization in AI

(00:12:48) State Space Models & Efficiency (Part 1)

(00:19:22) Sponsors: Weights & Biases RAG++ | Shopify

(00:21:26) State Space Models & Efficiency (Part 2)

(00:22:23) Dense Attention to Shared Attention

(00:29:41) Zyphra's Early Bet on Mamba (Part 1)

(00:33:18) Sponsors: Notion | LMNT

(00:36:00) Zyphra's Early Bet on Mamba (Part 2)

(00:37:22) Loss vs. Model Quality

(00:44:53) Emergence & Grokking

(00:50:06) Loss Landscapes & Convergence

(00:56:55) Sophia, Distillation & Secrets

(01:09:00) Competing with Big Tech

(01:23:50) The Future of Model Training

(01:30:02) Deep Dive into Zamba 1

(01:34:24) Zamba 2 and Mamba 2

(01:38:56) Context Extension & Memory

(01:44:04) Sequence Parallelism

(01:45:44) Zamba 2 Architecture

(01:53:57) Mamba Attention Hybrids

(02:00:00) Lock-in Effects

(02:05:32) Mamba Hybrids in Robotics

(02:07:07) Ease of Use & Compatibility

(02:12:10) Tree Attention vs. Ring Attention

(02:22:02) Zyphra's Vision & Goals

(02:23:57) Outro

SOCIAL LINKS:

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanlabenz/