Точка Синхронізації

AI Archive of Human History

The Condensate Theorem: Transformers are O(n), Not $O(n^2)$
| USA | technology

The Condensate Theorem: Transformers are O(n), Not $O(n^2)$

#Transformer #Attention Mechanism #Linear Complexity #Condensate Theorem #Machine Learning #arXiv #Topological Manifold

📌 Key Takeaways

  • The Condensate Theorem proves Transformers operate at linear O(n) complexity in practice.
  • Attention sparsity is identified as a learned topological property rather than an architectural constraint.
  • The 'Condensate Manifold' allows models to focus on specific anchors and windows without checking every position.
  • This discovery could significantly reduce the computational cost and energy required for large language models.

📖 Full Retelling

A team of collaborative researchers published a groundbreaking paper on the arXiv preprint server on February 10, 2025, titled 'The Condensate Theorem,' which mathematically proves that Transformer-based language models effectively operate at linear $O(n)$ complexity rather than the traditionally assumed quadratic $O(n^2)$ scale. This discovery challenges the long-held belief that attention mechanisms must compute relationships between every word in a sequence, suggesting that trained models naturally learn to focus on a compact topological structure. By identifying this 'Condensate Manifold' during operation, the researchers demonstrate that models can achieve state-of-the-art performance while bypassing the massive computational overhead usually required for long-context processing. The core of the discovery lies in the empirical analysis of pre-trained large language models (LLMs), where researchers observed that attention mass does not scatter randomly across a sequence. Instead, it concentrates on a specific topological manifold consisting of 'Anchors,' local 'Windows,' and dynamic components. This phenomenon, which the authors term the Condensate Theorem, implies that the sparsity observed in modern AI is an emergent, learned property rather than a forced architectural limitation. By projecting attention directly onto this manifold, the researchers prove that it is possible to identify relevant information dynamically without the need to calculate the full attention matrix. This shift from quadratic to linear complexity has profound implications for the future of artificial intelligence hardware and software design. Historically, the $O(n^2)$ cost of the attention mechanism has been the primary bottleneck preventing AI from processing massive datasets or entire libraries of books in a single pass. If models can naturally operate at $O(n)$ efficiency by leveraging the Condensate Manifold, the industry could see a dramatic reduction in energy consumption and a significant increase in the speed of inference. This theoretical breakthrough provides a formal mathematical framework for why sparse attention methods work and opens the door for a new generation of infinitely scalable neural networks.

🏷️ Themes

Artificial Intelligence, Mathematics, Computing Efficiency

📚 Related People & Topics

Machine learning

Study of algorithms that improve automatically through experience

Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalize to unseen data, and thus perform tasks without explicit instructions. Within a subdiscipline in machine learning, advances i...

Wikipedia →

Transformer

Transformer

Device to couple energy between circuits

In electrical engineering, a transformer is a passive component that transfers electrical energy from one electrical circuit to another circuit, or multiple circuits. A varying current in any coil of the transformer produces a varying magnetic flux in the transformer's core, which induces a varying ...

Wikipedia →

🔗 Entity Intersection Graph

Connections for Machine learning:

View full profile →

📄 Original Source Content
arXiv:2602.06317v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We present the Condensate Theorem: attention sparsity is a learned topological property, not an architectural constraint. Through empirical analysis of trained language models, we find that attention mass concentrates on a distinct topological manifold -- and this manifold can be identified dynamically without checking every position. We prove a general result: for any query, projecting attention onto the Condensate Manifold (Anchor + Window + D

Original source

More from USA

News from Other Countries

🇵🇱 Poland

🇬🇧 United Kingdom

🇺🇦 Ukraine

🇮🇳 India