Of GTC's 900+ sessions, the most wildly popular was a conversation hosted by NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang with seven of the authors of the legendary research paper that introduced the aptly named transformer - a neural network architecture that went on to change the deep learning landscape and enable today's era of generative AI.
Everything that we're enjoying today can be traced back to that moment, Huang said to a packed room with hundreds of attendees, who heard him speak with the authors of Attention Is All You Need.
Sharing the stage for the first time, the research luminaries reflected on the factors that led to their original paper, which has been cited more than 100,000 times since it was first published and presented at the NeurIPS AI conference. They also discussed their latest projects and offered insights into future directions for the field of generative AI.
While they started as Google researchers, the collaborators are now spread across the industry, most as founders of their own AI companies.
We have a whole industry that is grateful for the work that you guys did, Huang said.
From L to R: Lukasz Kaiser, Noam Shazeer, Aidan Gomez, Jensen Huang, Llion Jones, Jakob Uszkoreit, Ashish Vaswani and Illia Polosukhin. Origins of the Transformer Model The research team initially sought to overcome the limitations of recurrent neural networks, or RNNs, which were then the state of the art for processing language data.
Noam Shazeer, cofounder and CEO of Character.AI, compared RNNs to the steam engine and transformers to the improved efficiency of internal combustion.
We could have done the industrial revolution on the steam engine, but it would just have been a pain, he said. Things went way, way better with internal combustion.
Now we're just waiting for the fusion, quipped Illia Polosukhin, cofounder of blockchain company NEAR Protocol.
The paper's title came from a realization that attention mechanisms - an element of neural networks that enable them to determine the relationship between different parts of input data - were the most critical component of their model's performance.
We had very recently started throwing bits of the model away, just to see how much worse it would get. And to our surprise it started getting better, said Llion Jones, cofounder and chief technology officer at Sakana AI.
Having a name as general as transformers spoke to the team's ambitions to build AI models that could process and transform every data type - including text, images, audio, tensors and biological data.
That North Star, it was there on day zero, and so it's been really exciting and gratifying to watch that come to fruition, said Aidan Gomez, cofounder and CEO of Cohere. We're actually seeing it happen now.
Packed house at the San Jose Convention Center. Envisioning the Road Ahead Adaptive computation, where a model adjusts how much computing power is used based on the complexity of a given problem, is a key factor the researchers see improving in future AI models.
It's really about spending the right amount of effort and ultimately energy on a given problem, said Jakob Uszkoreit, cofounder and CEO of biological software company Inceptive. You don't want to spend too much on a problem that's easy or too little on a problem that's hard.
A math problem like two plus two, for example, shouldn't be run through a trillion-parameter transformer model - it should run on a basic calculator, the group agreed.
They're also looking forward to the next generation of AI models.
I think the world needs something better than the transformer, said Gomez. I think all of us here hope it gets succeeded by something that will carry us to a new plateau of performance.
You don't want to miss these next 10 years, Huang said. Unbelievable new capabilities will be invented.
The conversation concluded with Huang presenting each researcher with a framed cover plate of the NVIDIA DGX-1 AI supercomputer, signed with the message, You transformed the world.
Jensen presents lead author Ashish Vaswani with a signed DGX-1 cover. There's still time to catch the session replay by registering for a virtual GTC pass - it's free.
To discover the latest in generative AI, watch Huang's GTC keynote address:
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
04/06/2026
Sony Electronics is introducing the SRG-AS10, a 4K 60p-compatible PTZ auto-frami...
04/06/2026
This recent grad from Spring, TX, led creative-video output for the Aggies' men's basketball team last season and has been producing video and creating ...
04/06/2026
For the first time at a women's golf major, every player in the field will r...
04/06/2026
Three Panasonic PT-RQ45 40,000-lumen 3-Chip DLP projectors made their first live...
04/06/2026
Bitmovin and Akamai have announced a collaboration with NRJ Group, a French mult...
04/06/2026
Telestream will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth N7952), demonstrating media work...
04/06/2026
Sony has announced the development of RIALTO 65, a 65mm format image sensor block for the VENICE 2 digital cinema camera, targeting release in the first half of...
04/06/2026
KOKUSAI DENKI Electric America will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth N8025, June ...
04/06/2026
Bell Media's TSN and RDS are the exclusive Canadian broadcasters of FIFA Wor...
04/06/2026
The Challenge: Receiving Heavy Media Files From Road Games Quickly and ReliablyT...
04/06/2026
MASV, a managed file transfer platform used in broadcast and live sports product...
04/06/2026
NESN has announced the appointment of Fahad Haider as Vice President of Operations and Engineering. Haider returns to NESN, where he previously served as Vice P...
04/06/2026
David J. Halberstam, who spent almost 50 years in sports as a broadcaster and an executive, died June 2 after a years-long battle with brain cancer.
Over his l...
04/06/2026
Although collegiate production programs are tasked with delivering high-quality ...
04/06/2026
California studio, two production trucks, global distribution system are combine...
04/06/2026
New global program empowers and supports storytellers through scriptwriting course and access to industry experts
TikTok and Sundance Institute today announce...
04/06/2026
Steinberg DAWs now boast in-depth Tonalic integration
Celemony's innovative virtual session musician plug-in has just received an update that brings ARA...
04/06/2026
Get Hands-On With Over 20 Mic Brands
GearExpo UK is fast approaching, and if you've been looking for a chance to check out some new mics, then you'r...
04/06/2026
Combos feature new Amplifier Intelligence engine
Positive Grid's latest release sees the company introduce two new combo amplifiers that promise to offe...
04/06/2026
Is Your Job Making You Work this June?
4 June, 2026
Media releases
SBS Launches the World Cup Watchers' Rights Association to Stand Up For Australians&...
04/06/2026
Statement regarding unauthorised use of SBS logos on third party social content
4 June, 2026
Media releases
SBS has become aware of social media posts in c...
04/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/06/2026
Bitmovin, a leading provider of video streaming infrastructure, and Akamai, the cybersecurity and cloud computing company that powers and protects business onli...
04/06/2026
American Underground (AU), the Startup Hub of the South and a community of mor...
04/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
04/06/2026
NVIDIA and Microsoft Reinvent Windows PCs for the Age of Personal AI
Brie Clayton June 3, 2026
0 Comments
RTX Spark - a 1-Petaflop Superchip, the Full...
04/06/2026
Inside the Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man Grade
Brie Clayton June 3, 2026
0 Comments
Simone Grattarola discusses shaping the look in DaVinci Resolve...
04/06/2026
Cine Gear Expo Announces 2026 Awards of Excellence Recipients
Brie Clayton June 3, 2026
0 Comments
Ed Lachman ASC, Caleb Deschanel ASC, and M. David M...
04/06/2026
St. Vincents Live with Orchestra Tour to Feature Berklee Alum Ruby Plume Berklee alumni St. Vincent and Ruby Plume will appear on the same bill across seven d...
04/06/2026
Back to All News
All the Truth in My Lies Coming to Netflix on August 28
Entertainment
04 June 2026
GlobalSpain
Link copied to clipboard
Download the imag...
04/06/2026
Back to All News
Larry Tanz, VP of Content, EMEA, Delivers a Keynote Speech at ...
04/06/2026
Back to All News
Turn Your Living Room into a Stadium With the New FIFA World ...
04/06/2026
Keeping conversations real on LinkedIn Published on Jun 4, 2026 Categories: Product News
LinkedIn Corporate Communications
Share
LinkedIn
Facebook ...
04/06/2026
BackStory follows four Irish young people as they travel back to their parents' homelands
Modern Irish identity is enriched by cultures and influences from...
04/06/2026
June's forecast with GeForce NOW: 100% chance of gaming.
GeForce NOW is lining up new adventures for the month, from big-name blockbusters to quirky indies...
03/06/2026
SES and Viva, Mexico's ultra low-cost airline, have launched multi-orbit satellite inflight connectivity on Viva's Airbus aircraft. A total of 60 A320s ...
03/06/2026
The College Football Playoff, ESPN, and TNT Sports have announced kick times and...
03/06/2026
RED Digital Cinema will exhibit at Cine Gear Expo 2026 (Booth 33, June 5-6, Universal Studios Lot), hosting three panels and hands-on product demonstrations.
P...
03/06/2026
Roku has announced the Soccer Zone, a dedicated hub for FIFA World Cup 2026 content available across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argent...
Of GTC's 900+ sessions, the most wildly popular was a conversation hosted by NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang with seven of the authors of the legendary research paper that introduced the aptly named transformer - a neural network architecture that went on to change the deep learning landscape and enable today's era of generative AI.
