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systems, hardware, and ML at scale

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  • ML Systems

    CAKE from Scratch: Agents Write GPU Kernels, and the Compiler Learns from Their Mistakes

    A textbook-style tour of NVIDIA and CMU's CAKE (arXiv 2608.12629) for readers who have never written a GPU kernel: what kernels and expert schedules are, how kernel agents work today, CAKE IR and its pre-compile checks, a compiler that evolves from agent failures, and the evidence (1.144× vs 0.928× in a controlled Flash-KMeans study, a 2.05× KDA prefill, 10 of 11 expert kernels matched or beaten), with nine animated figures.

  • ML Systems

    DeepSeek-V4 and V4-Flash, Layer by Layer: Compressing Attention to Reach a Million Tokens

    A source-backed tour of DeepSeek-V4-Pro (1.6T, 49B active, 61 layers) and V4-Flash (284B, 13B active, 43 layers): a learned KV compressor, Compressed Sparse Attention and Heavily Compressed Attention over a 128-token window, a 512-wide shared-KV MQA core with a grouped output projection, four mHC residual streams, 384/256-expert MoE with hash routing and FP4 experts, and what changed in the 0731/0813 releases and V4.1-Flash — with eight interactive 3D models and six animated figures.

  • ML Systems

    GLM-5.3 and GLM-5.3-Flash, Layer by Layer: Same Skeleton, New Skills — and a Brand-New Hybrid

    A source-backed tour of Z.ai's GLM-5.3 (744B, 78 layers of MLA + DeepSeek Sparse Attention with IndexShare) and GLM-5.3-Flash (320B, a 45-layer KDA + DSA hybrid with NoPE attention, a pooled lightning indexer, and mHC residual streams), with seven interactive 3D models and six animated figures.

  • ML Systems

    Miles v0.1 Deep Dive: From Train–Rollout Mismatch to Trillion-Parameter Agentic RL

    A source-backed deep dive into Miles v0.1: mismatch control with TITO, R3, and TIS; asynchronous staleness; P2P and disk-delta transport; and on-policy distillation.

  • GPU Architecture

    AMD MI350 GPU Architecture Deep Dive

    A deep dive into AMD MI350 (CDNA 4) — architecture, programming model, hardware features, and what sets it apart from NVIDIA.