Tentative Schedule
This is a tentative schedule. It will be updated according to the actual progress.
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Week/DateDescriptionCourse MaterialRemark
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Week 1
08/01/2025 (Wed)
09/01/2025 (Thu)
Overview of Foundation Models in AI; Pre-Transformer Era of Deep Learning models[slides] -
Week 2/ Week 3
15/01/2025 (Wed)
16/01/2025 (Thu)
22/01/2025 (Wed)
23/01/2025 (Thu)
Transformer: Basic Architecture[slides] -
29/01/2025 (Wed)
30/01/2025 (Thu)
Chinese New Year Holiday -
Week 4
05/02/2025 (Wed)
06/02/2025 (Thu)
Efficient Transformer Architectures[slides] -
Week 5
12/02/2025 (Wed)
13/02/2025 (Thu)
Beyond Transformers: Alternative Architectures for LLMs[slides] -
12/02/2025 23:59PM
WednesdayHomework 1 is due!Due -
15/02/2025 23:59PM
SaturdayReading Assignment 1 is due!Due -
Week 6
19/02/2025 (Wed)
20/02/2025 (Thu)
Distributed/ Parallel Training of Foundation Models[slides]Readings: [Megatron] [DeepSpeedZeRO] [ZeRO] Sec2.5 of [OPT]
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22/02/2025 23:59PM
SaturdayReading Assignment 2 is due!Due -
26/02/2025 (Wed)
27/02/2025 (Thu)
The instructor will be on conference leave - No Lectures. The make-up lecture will be on 23 Apr.No lectures -
01/03/2025 23:59PM
SaturdayReading Assignment 3 is due!Due -
Week 7/ Week 8
05/03/2025 (Wed)
06/03/2025 (Thu)
12/03/2025 (Wed)
13/03/2025 (Thu)
Pre-training of Foundation Models and Data Preparation[slides] -
08/03/2025 23:59PM
SaturdayReading Assignment 4 is due!Due -
15/03/2025 23:59PM
SaturdayHomework 2 is due!Due -
Week 9
19/03/2025 (Wed)
20/03/2025 (Thu)
Post-training/ Adaptation of Foundation Models;[slides] -
22/03/2025 23:59PM
SaturdayReading Assignment 5 is due!Due -
Week 10/ Week 11
26/03/2025 (Wed)
27/03/2025 (Thu)
02/04/2025 (Wed)
03/04/2025 (Thu)
Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and Tool Use for Foundation Models[slides] -
29/03/2025 23:59PM
SaturdayReading Assignment 6 is due!Due -
02/04/2025 23:59PM
WednesdayHomework 3 is due!Due -
05/04/2025 23:59PM
SaturdayReading Assignment 7 is due!Due -
07/04/2025 23:59PM
MondayProject proposal is due!Due -
Week 12
09/04/2025 (Wed)
10/04/2025 (Thu)
Teaching LLMs to Reason and Reasoning LLMs[slides] -
12/04/2025 23:59PM
SaturdayReading Assignment 8 is due!Due -
Week 13
16/04/2025 (Wed)
17/04/2025 (Thu)
Agentic AI Applications[slides] -
19/04/2025 23:59PM
SaturdayReading Assignment 9 is due!Due -
Week 14
23/04/2025 (Wed)
AI Safety and Security[slides]Make-up lecture -
26/04/2025 23:59PM
SaturdayReading Assignment 10 is due!Due -
03/05/2025 23:59PM
SaturdayReading Assignment 11 is due!Due -
04/05/2025 23:59PM
SundayProject final milestones is due!Due