Sparse attention can replace global attention without downsides

stochasticchasm · x · 2026-08-28

Observing GLM-5.3 Flash's use of KDA and sparse attention, the author notes that global attention layers can seemingly be replaced by sparse attention layers without downsides. While linear attention has local position bias and lacks retrieval, sparse attention preserves retrieval capabilities, a trend confirmed in practice and at scale.

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