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feat(attention): implement lightweight MultiheadAttention using PyTorch SDPA #5
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StatMixedML
commented
Sep 17, 2025
- Uses PyTorch scaled_dot_product_attention with Flash Attention dispatch
- More efficient than naive attention; allows for longer sequences (larger T) or bigger batches before OOM
Clarify the advantages of transformers for tabular datasets and explain the role of the MLP in TabPFN.
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…ch SDPA - Uses PyTorch scaled_dot_product_attention with Flash Attention dispatch - More efficient than naive attention; allows for longer sequences (larger T) or bigger batches before OOM
…ch SDPA - Uses PyTorch scaled_dot_product_attention with Flash Attention dispatch - More efficient than naive attention; allows for longer sequences (larger T) or bigger batches before OOM
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Summary of Changes
Hello @StatMixedML, I'm Gemini Code Assist1! I'm currently reviewing this pull request and will post my feedback shortly. In the meantime, here's a summary to help you and other reviewers quickly get up to speed!
This pull request introduces a new, highly optimized MultiheadAttention
module that leverages PyTorch's scaled_dot_product_attention
(SDPA) functionality. This change significantly enhances the efficiency of attention computations, particularly by enabling automatic dispatch to Flash Attention kernels on supported hardware. The integration of this new module into the NanoTabPFNModel
is expected to reduce memory consumption and allow for processing longer sequences or larger batches, thereby improving the overall scalability and performance of the model.
Highlights
- New MultiheadAttention Implementation: A new
MultiheadAttention
module has been introduced, designed to be lightweight and efficient, residing in its own dedicated filenanotabpfn/attention.py
. - PyTorch SDPA Integration: The core of the new attention module leverages PyTorch's
scaled_dot_product_attention
(SDPA) for its computations, simplifying the implementation and benefiting from PyTorch's optimizations. - Flash Attention Dispatch: The use of SDPA enables automatic dispatch to highly optimized Flash Attention kernels on compatible CUDA hardware, leading to significant performance improvements and a reduced memory footprint, especially for longer sequences.
- Model Integration and Compatibility: The existing
NanoTabPFNModel
has been updated to utilize this new, more efficientMultiheadAttention
implementation, and the logic for loading model state dictionaries has been adjusted to correctly identify the parameters of the new attention module.
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Code Review
This pull request introduces a lightweight MultiheadAttention
module using PyTorch's efficient scaled_dot_product_attention
, which is a fantastic performance enhancement. The related changes in interface.py
and model.py
are correct and necessary adaptations. My feedback is focused on the new nanotabpfn/attention.py
file, with suggestions to enhance its flexibility and reusability by exposing parameters for dropout, attention masking, and causality, which would align it more closely with the standard torch.nn.MultiheadAttention
module. I've also included a minor suggestion to improve type hint conventions.
… for qkv and out_proj
… for qkv and out_proj
… for qkv and out_proj