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ultimate guide to FlashAttention
FlashAttention is a memory-efficient algorithm designed to improve how large language models (LLMs) handle data. It reduces memory usage by up to 10x and speeds up processing, enabling models to manage longer sequences without the usual computational bottlenecks. By using block-wise computation and optimizing GPU memory usage, FlashAttention ensures faster training cycles and lower hardware requirements. FlashAttention divides data into smaller blocks processed within the GPU's on-chip memory. This avoids storing large attention matrices, using techniques like online softmax and block-wise computation to maintain accuracy. FlashAttention simplifies scaling LLMs by making training faster, cheaper, and more efficient, while maintaining the same accuracy as older methods.