Comment by shwaj
At some point it becomes difficult to improve the O() complexity. How do you do better that the O(n-squared) of the Transformer, with acceptable tradeoffs? Many big brains in all the big labs are very aware of the importance of algorithmic advances. There is no low hanging fruit, but they're doing their best.
Then in parallel to that looking at compiler optimizations, and other higher-level algorithmic innovations such as Flash Attention (a classic at this point) which had a drastic impact on performance due to cache awareness, without changing the O() complexity.
Sometimes it's the theory, sometimes it's the engineering, and often it's both.