New NanoGPT Speedrun Record at 75.4s via Optimized Triton Kernel

kellerjordan0 · x · 2026-08-02

The NanoGPT Speedrun Track 1 has a new world record at 75.4 seconds (-0.6s), set by congml and Recursive.

The speedup comes from an optimized Triton kernel for the ReLU^2 MLP. During the forward pass of relu(X@W1)^2@W2, the standard approach saves both relu(X@W1) and its square for the backward pass. This PR only saves the squared version and reconstructs the former during the backward pass as a fused epilogue, significantly reducing memory traffic.

Related event: NanoGPT Training Speedrun Records Shattered, Hitting 74.6 Seconds(2 posts)→

Original post →

More from Research

Research channel →