CS25: Transformers United V6
Stanford University • Spring 2026
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Overview
CS25 has become one of Stanford’s hottest seminar courses, featuring top researchers at the forefront of Transformers research. Each week dives into the latest breakthroughs in AI, from large language models to applications in art, biology, and robotics.
Quarter: Spring 2026 (March 30 - June 3)
When: Thursdays 4:30 - 5:50 pm PDT
Where: Skiling Auditorium + Zoom livestream (open to public)
This page tracks my notes, speaker research, and key insights from the course.
Note: Some pre-reads are based on speaker research only, with topics still TBD. These will be updated as the course announces topics. Check the official course site for the latest schedule.
Schedule
| Date | Topic | Speaker(s) | Slides | Pre-Read | Session Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 2 | Overview of Transformers | Instructors | Course Slides | Pre-Read | Notes |
| Apr 9 | JEPA & World Models | Hazel Nam & Lucas Maes (Brown) | Slides | Pre-Read | Notes |
| Apr 16 | SSMs & Mamba | Albert Gu (CMU) | — | Pre-Read | Notes |
| Apr 23 | Ultra-Scale Training | Nouamane Tazi (Hugging Face) | — | Pre-Read | — |
| Apr 30 | TBA | TBD | — | — | — |
| May 7 | TBD | Andrew Lampinen (Anthropic) | — | Pre-Read | — |
| May 14 | TBD | Vivek Natarajan (DeepMind) | — | Pre-Read | — |
| May 21 | TBA | TBD | — | — | — |
| May 28 | TBD | Charles Frye (Modal) | — | Pre-Read | — |
Quick Links
- Speaker Research — Bio, papers, question banks, and relevance to autonomy for all course speakers
- Themes & Connections — Cross-lecture patterns and connections
- Deep Dives — Extended technical explanations (empty — content now in session notes)
Deep Dives
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| Object-Centric vs. Patch-Based Representations & Bidirectional Transformers | Why JEPA uses object-centric representations instead of patches, how Slot Attention resolves binding, and what bidirectional transformers enable |
Key Links
- Course Site
- YouTube Playlist
- Live session access / Q&A / community / auditor signup: See the official course site for the current links and participation details.
Relevance to Autonomy Research
This course is particularly relevant for:
- Embodied AI: JEPA architectures for world models (Week 2)
- Long-horizon reasoning: SSMs/Mamba for extended context (Week 3)
- Safety-critical deployment: Med-PaLM validation patterns (Week 7)
- Efficient inference: Block importance, efficient transformers (Week 6)
- Infrastructure: Serverless GPU deployment (Week 10)
Last updated: 2026-04-22