US Patent 11693627 Contiguous sparsity pattern neural networks

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for using neural networks having contiguous sparsity patterns. One of the methods includes storing a first parameter matrix of a neural network having a contiguous sparsity pattern in storage associated with a computing device. The computing device performs an inference pass of the neural network to generate an output vector, including reading, from the storage associated with the computing device, one or more activation values from the input vector, reading, from the storage associated with the computing device, a block of non-zero parameter values, and multiplying each of the one or more activation values by one or more of the block of non-zero parameter values.