You can test the whole thing for free on a GPU with Google Colab. Test both the transformer and your new architecture on a larger dataset. Something that maxes out the GPU for an hour each run.

Also, the readme mentions keeping the same optimizer schedule which sounds nice at first but they are completely different architectures. The loss is high on the transformer, did you try raising the learning rate on it?

In general I’m interested in parameter efficient architectures. I don’t think transformers are optimal, and indeed many improvements have been made to vanilla transformers. But if you have an idea for something better you need to show it.

Why did you choose Rust? Why does that matter?

Nothing wrong with Rust. Lots wrong with the bandwagon that “in Rust” somehow adds value.