---
language: en
license: apache-2.0
tags:
- causal-lm
- research
- fp8
- attention
- normalization
- neollm
- pace
datasets:
- HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu
---

# NeoLLM

NeoLLM is a **135 M parameter** decoder-only language model trained from scratch on
[FineWeb-Edu](https://huggingface.co/datasets/HuggingFaceFW/fineweb-edu) in **FP8**
precision, completing training in approximately **6 hours** on a single NVIDIA RTX 5090.
It integrates a collection of recently published attention and normalization techniques
into a single architecture, with the goal of studying how they interact during
pretraining. The model is actively being developed and the current checkpoint represents
an intermediate training state.

> **Author / contact:** [@Kyokopom](https://x.com/Kyokopom) on X
> **Repository:** [KitsuVp/NeoLLM](https://huggingface.co/KitsuVp/NeoLLM)

---

## Architecture

NeoLLM is a decoder-only transformer with the following configuration:

| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Hidden size | 512 |
| Layers | 12 |
| Attention heads | 8 |
| KV heads (GQA) | 4 |
| Head dim | 64 |
| Intermediate size | 1536 |
| Vocabulary | Qwen3 tokenizer (64,402 tokens) |
| Context length | 512 tokens |

### Parameter breakdown

| Parameter bucket | Count |
|---|---|
| **Total parameters** | 84.70M (84,700,504) |
| **Embedding parameters** (tied) | 32.97M (32,973,824) |
| **Non-embedding parameters** | 51.73M (51,726,680) |
| **Effective trainable parameters** | 84.70M (84,700,504) |

> Weight tying is **enabled**: the input embedding matrix and the language-model head
> share the same parameters, so the effective trainable budget is
> `total − embed = 51.73M`.

### Integrated techniques

NeoLLM combines architecture modules, optional auxiliary objectives, and
training-time optimizer/stability components from the following papers.

**Embedding and token representation**

- **Learnable Multipliers** ([arXiv:2601.04890](https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.04890)) — Adds
  per-row and per-column learnable scalar parameters to selected matrix layers and, when
  enabled, embeddings.
- **Leviathan** ([arXiv:2601.22040](https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.22040)) — Optional
  continuous token embedding generator that can replace the discrete input lookup table.
- **KHRONOS** ([arXiv:2505.13315](https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.13315)) — Kernel/basis
  reference used by the Leviathan continuous token generator implementation.
- **Spelling Bee Embeddings** ([arXiv:2601.18030](https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.18030)) —
  Augments token embeddings with character-level spelling information.
- **Token Embedding Manifold analysis** ([arXiv:2504.01002](https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.01002)) —
  Reference motivation for treating token embeddings as structured objects rather than
  unconstrained lookup rows.

**Attention, positions, and output projection**

- **FAN** ([arXiv:2502.21309](https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.21309)) — Fourier Analysis Networks.
  A portion of the projection channels are dedicated to periodic cosine/sine features.
- **MEA** ([arXiv:2601.19611](https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.19611)) — Explicit Multi-head
  Attention. Adds small learnable interaction matrices between attention heads for K and V.
- **LUCID** ([arXiv:2602.10410](https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.10410)) — Applies a learned
  lower-triangular preconditioner to V before attention, decorrelating value representations
  across positions.
- **Affine-Scaled Attention** ([arXiv:2602.23057](https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.23057)) — Adds
  two learnable per-head scalars (α and β) to the softmax weights:
  `[α·softmax(QKᵀ) + β]·V`.
- **XSA** ([arXiv:2603.09078](https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.09078)) — Exclusive Self Attention.
  After computing attention, removes the component of the output aligned with the token's
  own value vector.
- **Directional Routing** ([arXiv:2603.14923](https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.14923)) — Each head
  learns K=4 directions in the output space; a learned router suppresses the attention output
  along each direction per input.
- **Gated Attention** ([arXiv:2505.06708](https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.06708)) — A sigmoid gate
  is applied to the attention output before the output projection, introducing non-linearity
  and preventing attention sinks.
- **Momentum Attention** ([arXiv:2411.03884](https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.03884)) — Modifies Q
  and K by subtracting a fraction of the previous position's Q and K values (causal
  first-difference).
- **Interleaved Head Attention / IHA** ([arXiv:2602.21371](https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.21371)) —
  Builds pseudo-heads from learned cross-head mixtures to create multiple attention patterns
  per original head.
- **REPO** ([arXiv:2512.14391](https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.14391)) — Context re-positioning
  module that learns contextual position coordinates above a configurable start layer.
- **GRAPE** ([arXiv:2512.07805](https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.07805)) — Group representational
  position encoding used by the REPO-GRAPE positional path.
- **GOAT priors** ([arXiv:2601.15380](https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.15380)) — Optional
  factorized attention log-prior channels inspired by trainable attention priors.
- **Hadamard output projection** ([arXiv:2603.08343](https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.08343)) —
  Replaces dense attention output projection with a structured Hadamard transform plus
  lightweight scaling.

**Normalization, residual flow, and MLP**

- **SeeDNorm** ([arXiv:2510.22777](https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.22777)) — Applied to Q and K
  projections. Dynamically rescales normalization from the input's own statistics.
- **LayerNorm Scaling / LNS** ([arXiv:2502.05795](https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.05795)) — Each
  layer's output is scaled by 1/√ℓ where ℓ is the layer index.
- **GPAS** ([arXiv:2506.22049](https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.22049)) — Gradient-Preserving
  Activation Scaling for residual junctions.
- **PolyNorm** ([arXiv:2602.04902](https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.04902)) — Replaces the standard
  MLP activation with normalized linear, quadratic, and cubic branches.
- **SimpleGPT** ([arXiv:2602.01212](https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.01212)) — Second-order
  geometry-inspired normalization strategy applied inside MLP projections.
- **StackMemory / STACKTRANS** ([NeurIPS 2025](https://openreview.net/forum?id=2bbDg587uh)) —
  Optional differentiable hidden-state stack between decoder layers.
- **Attention Residuals / AttnRes** ([arXiv:2603.15031](https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.15031)) —
  Optional learned depth-wise aggregation over previous layer outputs or block summaries.
- **LAUREL** ([arXiv:2411.07501](https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.07501)) — Optional learned
  augmented residual layer with residual-weight and low-rank variants.

**Training objectives and training-time regularizers**

- **Cut Cross Entropy** ([Apple repository](https://github.com/apple/ml-cross-entropy)) —
  Memory-efficient next-token loss that avoids materializing the full token-by-vocabulary
  logits tensor. NeoLLM remains compatible with the upstream package when the extensions
  below are disabled.
- **MiLe Loss** ([arXiv:2310.19531](https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.19531)) — Optional detached,
  mean-normalized predictive-entropy weighting of token losses, implemented inside the
  extended CCE path.
- **Output Embedding Centering / mu-loss**
  ([arXiv:2601.02031](https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.02031)) — Optional
  `lambda * ||mean(output_embeddings)||^2` regularizer for output-logit stability.
- **MEAP** ([arXiv:2502.07490](https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.07490)) — Optional training-only
  input corruption that masks a fixed fraction of eligible tokens while preserving clean
  next-token labels, causal attention, and the inference path.
- **TWEO** ([arXiv:2511.23225](https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.23225)) — Optional
  Transformers Without Extreme Outliers activation regularizer for FP8/low-bit-friendly
  training.
- **NITP** ([arXiv:2605.24956](https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.24956)) — Optional Next Implicit
  Token Prediction auxiliary objective using shallow-layer implicit token targets and a
  cosine loss.
- **NextLat** ([arXiv:2511.05963](https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.05963)) — Optional next-latent
  prediction objective using latent dynamics, Smooth L1 supervision, and frozen-head KL.

### Optional extended-CCE configuration

| Feature | Enabled | Value |
|---|---:|---:|
| MiLe Loss | True | gamma=1.0 |
| mu-loss | True | lambda=0.0001 |
| MEAP | True | ratio=0.15 |

MiLe, mu-loss, and MEAP require the extended
[`Kitsunp/ml-cross-entropy`](https://github.com/Kitsunp/ml-cross-entropy) package only when
their corresponding flags are enabled. With all flags disabled, NeoLLM calls upstream CCE
without extension-specific arguments. When any extension is active, CCE reports three compact
scalars: unweighted NTP cross entropy, the MiLe reweighting delta, and the mu-loss penalty.
Their sum reconstructs `ntp_loss` exactly. MEAP reports its eligible and selected counts from
the masking kernel; the trainer logs the selected count and exact fraction. No diagnostic path
materializes full-vocabulary logits or a token mask outside the kernels.

**Optimizer and training stability**

- **Conda** ([arXiv:2509.24218](https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.24218)) —
  Column-Normalized Adam optimizer path used by the training script.
- **Cautious Weight Decay** ([arXiv:2510.12402](https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.12402)) —
  Sign-selective weight decay variant used by the custom optimizer logic.
- **Correction of Decoupled Weight Decay** ([arXiv:2512.08217](https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.08217)) —
  Adapts decoupled weight decay during learning-rate decay.
- **AdamHD** ([arXiv:2511.14721](https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.14721)) —
  Decoupled Huber decay regularization reference used by the optimizer.
- **GradientStabilizer** ([arXiv:2502.17055](https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.17055)) —
  Optional threshold-free gradient magnitude stabilizer.
- **PACE** ([arXiv:2606.25086](https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.25086)) —
  Optional iterate-average controller that trains for the EMA model returned at evaluation
  and final serialization. The Conda-basis adaptation and its difference from AdamW are
  documented below.

---

### PACE integration and AdamW-reference differences

PACE follows Au and Block's returned-model objective: the live weights are pulled toward a
power-law EMA with a clipped per-coordinate gain, and evaluation/final serialization use that
EMA estimator.

- **Reference AdamW rule:** the gain uses AdamW's original-coordinate diagonal
  second moment, `eta * c * (1+t)^(-kappa) / (sqrt(v_hat) + eps)`.
- **NeoLLM Conda rule (`mode=conda`):** for projected 2-D tensors, both the EMA
  displacement and `v_hat` are represented in Conda's cached SVD basis. The control is
  projected back after applying the diagonal gain. This is a deliberate change from AdamW
  required to avoid mixing incompatible coordinate systems.
- **Optional exact AdamW pullback geometry (`mode=adamw`):** an additional
  original-coordinate second moment is maintained for projected matrices. The live optimizer
  step remains Conda.
- **Conda scale:** in `mode=conda`, Conda's matrix-update scale multiplies the unsaturated
  gain automatically because it is part of the effective Conda preconditioner. AdamW has no
  corresponding scale.
- **Fixed algorithm internals:** the EMA is stored in FP32, the gain is clipped at `1`, and PACE
  reuses each Conda group’s numerical epsilon. These are not exposed as independent switches.
- **Minimal modes:** `use_pace=False` is plain Conda; `use_pace=True, c=0` is Conda+EMA;
  `use_pace=True, c>0` is complete PACE.
- **Ordering:** PACE runs only after Conda, CWD/CHD, and weight-decay correction have fully
  updated the live weights.
- **Disabled guarantee:** with `use_pace=False`, no PACE state is allocated and no existing
  Conda arithmetic or parameter update is changed.
- **Checkpoint policy:** resumable internal checkpoints retain live weights and complete optimizer
  state, while evaluation and the final returned/Hub model always use the EMA when PACE is active.

Current run: **disabled; no EMA state, auxiliary moment, or pullback is allocated**.

---

## Training

| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Dataset | FineWeb-Edu (sample-10BT) |
| Tokens seen | ~1.54B (46,875 steps × batch 64 × length 512) |
| Precision | FP8 native (E4M3 weights/activations, E5M2 gradients) + BF16 fallback |
| Optimizer | Conda (PACE disabled) |
| PACE | disabled; no EMA state, auxiliary moment, or pullback is allocated |
| Learning rate | 6e-04 with linear warmup (10 % of steps) |
| Weight decay | 0.1 |
| Training time | ~4h 13m |
| Hardware | NVIDIA RTX 5090 (single GPU) |

### Training curve

| Step | Train Loss | Val Loss |
|---|---|---|
| 5,000 | 5.697 | 5.222 |
| 10,000 | 5.646 | 5.180 |
| 15,000 | 5.554 | 5.068 |
| 20,000 | 5.909 | 5.434 |
| 25,000 | 5.749 | 5.275 |
| 30,000 | 5.791 | 5.281 |
| 35,000 | 6.426 | 5.953 |
| 40,000 | 6.062 | 5.616 |
| 45,000 | 5.900 | 5.432 |
| 46,875 | — | 5.343 |

---

## Limitations

- **Token budget** — ~1.5 B tokens seen; below estimated optimum. Knowledge-intensive tasks
  will improve with more training.
- **Gradient spike at step 40k** — Reorganized the attention pattern in layer 9 that
  previously captured long-range token correlations. A checkpoint from ~step 38k is expected
  to have better aggregate benchmark scores.
- **PolyNorm exclusivity** — The quadratic branch has become partially redundant with the
  linear branch. Will be corrected in the next training run.
- **Base model only** — Not instruction-tuned or aligned; purely a next-token-prediction
  base model.

---

## References

All papers whose techniques are integrated into NeoLLM's architecture,
training objective, or training stack:

| Area | Technique | Paper title | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Embeddings | Learnable Multipliers | Freeing the Scale of Language Model Matrix Layers | [arXiv:2601.04890](https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.04890) |
| Embeddings | Leviathan | A Separable Architecture for Continuous Token Representation in Language Models | [arXiv:2601.22040](https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.22040) |
| Embeddings | KHRONOS | KHRONOS: a Kernel-Based Neural Architecture for Rapid, Resource-Efficient Scientific Computation | [arXiv:2505.13315](https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.13315) |
| Embeddings | Spelling Bee | Spelling Bee Embeddings for Language Modeling | [arXiv:2601.18030](https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.18030) |
| Embeddings | Token embedding analysis | Token Embeddings Violate the Manifold Hypothesis | [arXiv:2504.01002](https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.01002) |
| Attention / positions | FAN | Fourier Analysis Networks | [arXiv:2502.21309](https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.21309) |
| Attention / positions | MEA | Explicit Multi-head Attention for Inter-head Interaction in Large Language Models | [arXiv:2601.19611](https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.19611) |
| Attention / positions | LUCID | Attention with Preconditioned Representations | [arXiv:2602.10410](https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.10410) |
| Attention / positions | Affine-Scaled Attention | Affine-Scaled Attention: Towards Flexible and Stable Transformer Attention | [arXiv:2602.23057](https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.23057) |
| Attention / positions | XSA | Exclusive Self Attention | [arXiv:2603.09078](https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.09078) |
| Attention / positions | Directional Routing | Directional Routing in Transformers | [arXiv:2603.14923](https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.14923) |
| Attention / positions | Gated Attention | Gated Attention for Large Language Models: Non-linearity, Sparsity, and Attention-Sink-Free | [arXiv:2505.06708](https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.06708) |
| Attention / positions | Momentum Attention | Momentum Attention | [arXiv:2411.03884](https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.03884) |
| Attention / positions | IHA | Interleaved Head Attention | [arXiv:2602.21371](https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.21371) |
| Attention / positions | REPO | Language Models with Context Re-Positioning | [arXiv:2512.14391](https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.14391) |
| Attention / positions | GRAPE | Group Representational Position Encoding | [arXiv:2512.07805](https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.07805) |
| Attention / positions | GOAT priors | You Need Better Attention Priors | [arXiv:2601.15380](https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.15380) |
| Attention / positions | Hadamard o_proj | Rethinking Attention Output Projection: Structured Hadamard Transforms for Efficient Transformers | [arXiv:2603.08343](https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.08343) |
| Residual / normalization | SeeDNorm | Self-Rescaled Dynamic Normalization | [arXiv:2510.22777](https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.22777) |
| Residual / normalization | LNS | The Curse of Depth in LLMs | [arXiv:2502.05795](https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.05795) |
| Residual / normalization | GPAS | Gradient-Preserving Activation Scaling | [arXiv:2506.22049](https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.22049) |
| Residual / normalization | PolyNorm | PolyNorm / PolyCom | [arXiv:2602.04902](https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.04902) |
| Residual / normalization | SimpleGPT | SimpleGPT | [arXiv:2602.01212](https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.01212) |
| Residual / normalization | StackMemory / STACKTRANS | Recursive Transformer: Boosting Reasoning Ability with State Stack | [NeurIPS 2025](https://openreview.net/forum?id=2bbDg587uh) |
| Residual / normalization | Attention Residuals | Attention Residuals | [arXiv:2603.15031](https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.15031) |
| Residual / normalization | LAUREL | LAUREL: Learned Augmented Residual Layer | [arXiv:2411.07501](https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.07501) |
| Objectives | TWEO | Transformers Without Extreme Outliers Enables FP8 Training And Quantization For Dummies | [arXiv:2511.23225](https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.23225) |
| Objectives | NITP | Next Implicit Token Prediction for LLM Pre-training | [arXiv:2605.24956](https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.24956) |
| Objectives | NextLat | Next-Latent Prediction Transformers Learn Compact World Models | [arXiv:2511.05963](https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.05963) |
| Optimizer / training | Conda | Column-Normalized Adam for Training Large Language Models Faster | [arXiv:2509.24218](https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.24218) |
| Optimizer / training | CWD | Cautious Weight Decay | [arXiv:2510.12402](https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.12402) |
| Optimizer / training | WD correction | Correction of Decoupled Weight Decay | [arXiv:2512.08217](https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.08217) |
| Optimizer / training | AdamHD | AdamHD: Decoupled Huber Decay Regularization for Language Model Pre-Training | [arXiv:2511.14721](https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.14721) |
| Optimizer / training | GradientStabilizer | GradientStabilizer | [arXiv:2502.17055](https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.17055) |
| Optimizer / training | PACE | Training for the Model You Return: Improving Optimization for Iterate-Averaged Language Models | [arXiv:2606.25086](https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.25086) |

---

## Citation

```bibtex
@misc{neollm2026,
  title  = {NeoLLM: A Research Language Model Integrating Recent Attention and Normalization Techniques},
  author = {KitsuVp},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://huggingface.co/KitsuVp/NeoLLM}
}
```

---

## Author

[@Kyokopom](https://x.com/Kyokopom) on X

---

## License

Apache 2.0