Mark Mario
@markmario77
· Sep 10
Is attention still all you need for AI?No, attention is losing its crown as state-space models like Mamba offer faster O(n) computation, and hybrid architectures are now reshaping modern LLMs.What happened: The Mamba architecture, built on 1960s rocket-control math, is quietly replacing pure attention mechanisms in major AI systems. In 2024, companies like IBM and NVIDIA adopted these hybrids for Granite 4.0 and Nemotron, proving that linear-complexity models are finally practical. Turns out the 2017 Attention paper was more of a strong suggestion than a marriage vow.Key numbers: 1960s origin of Mamba's foundational mathO(n) linear computation complexity for Mamba2 major models adopting hybrids: IBM Granite 4.0 and NVIDIA NemotronWhy it matters: Pure attention scales quadratically, making long-context inference incredibly expensive. Hybrid architectures slash those costs while maintaining reasoning quality, permanently altering how AI workloads run.Bottom line: The transformer throne is wobbling as math from the space race proves O(n) is the new standard.
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