# An overview of domain-specific foundation model: key technologies, applications and challenges

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.04267 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.04267/

## Key facts

- Cited by 19 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 157 of its 208 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 6 Sep 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 157)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [The Llama 3 Herd of Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.21783/) (2024)
- [Exploring the Limits of Transfer Learning with a Unified Text-to-Text Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.10683/) (2019)
- [LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09685/) (2021)
- [LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13971/) (2023)
- [Llama 2: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.09288/) (2023)
- [Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.11903/) (2022)
- [Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.11401/) (2020)
- [Segment Anything](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.02643/) (2023)
- [Visual Instruction Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08485/) (2023)
- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [Scaling Laws for Neural Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.08361/) (2020)
- [Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09748/) (2022)
- [Efficient Memory Management for Large Language Model Serving with PagedAttention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.06180/) (2023)
- [BART: Denoising Sequence-to-Sequence Pre-training for Natural Language Generation, Translation, and Comprehension](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.13461/) (2019)
- [Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05543/) (2023)
- [Improved Baselines with Visual Instruction Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.03744/) (2023)
- [BLIP: Bootstrapping Language-Image Pre-training for Unified Vision-Language Understanding and Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.12086/) (2022)
- [Parameter-Efficient Transfer Learning for NLP](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.00751/) (2019)
- [Prefix-Tuning: Optimizing Continuous Prompts for Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.00190/) (2021)
- [Dense Passage Retrieval for Open-Domain Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.04906/) (2020)
- [FlashAttention: Fast and Memory-Efficient Exact Attention with IO-Awareness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.14135/) (2022)
- [Longformer: The Long-Document Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.05150/) (2020)
- [Qwen Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.16609/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 19 of 19)

- [CSI-BERT2: A BERT-inspired Framework for Efficient CSI Prediction and Classification in Wireless Communication and Sensing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.06861/) (2024)
- [Surgical Scene Understanding in the Era of Foundation AI Models: A Comprehensive Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.14886/) (2025)
- [KNN-MMD: Cross Domain Wireless Sensing via Local Distribution Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.04783/) (2024)
- [GuessArena: Guess Who I Am? A Self-Adaptive Framework for Evaluating LLMs in Domain-Specific Knowledge and Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.22661/) (2025)
- [Edge-Based Multimodal Sensor Data Fusion with Vision Language Models (VLMs) for Real-time Autonomous Vehicle Accident Avoidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.01057/) (2025)
- [Data-Efficient CLIP-Powered Dual-Branch Networks for Source-Free Unsupervised Domain Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.15811/) (2024)
- [Breaking Down Bias: On The Limits of Generalizable Pruning Strategies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.07771/) (2025)
- [Confident RAG: Enhancing the Performance of LLMs for Mathematics Question Answering through Multi-Embedding and Confidence Scoring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.17442/) (2025)
- [STM3: Mixture of Multiscale Mamba for Long-Term Spatio-Temporal Time-Series Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.12247/) (2025)
- [DK-Root: A Joint Data-and-Knowledge-Driven Framework for Root Cause Analysis of QoE Degradations in Mobile Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.11737/) (2025)
- [Odyssey: Constructing Verifiable Local Truth-Preserving Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.27593/) (2026)
- [Error-Aware Reverse Auction Mechanism for Large Language Model Routing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.12719/) (2026)
- [Label Unbalance in High-frequency Trading](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.09988/) (2025)
- [PB-IAD: Utilizing multimodal foundation models for semantic industrial anomaly detection in dynamic manufacturing environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.14504/) (2025)
- [Zero-Effort Image-to-Music Generation: An Interpretable RAG-based VLM Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.22378/) (2025)
- [AutoFed: Personalized Federated Traffic Prediction via Adaptive Prompt](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.24625/) (2025)
- [Multi-Modal LLM based Image Captioning in ICT: Bridging the Gap Between General and Industry Domain](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.09298/) (2026)
- [The Economics of AI Supply Chain Regulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.12630/) (2026)
- [ERSkill: Evolving for Skill-Guided Adaptive Memory Retrieval](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.12720/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The impressive performance of ChatGPT and other foundation-model-based products in human language understanding has prompted both academia and industry to explore how these models can be tailored for specific industries and application scenarios. This process, known as the customization of domain-specific foundation models (FMs), addresses the limitations of general-purpose models, which may not fully capture the unique patterns and requirements of domain-specific data. Despite its importance, there is a notable lack of comprehensive overview papers on building domain-specific FMs, while numerous resources exist for general-purpose models. To bridge this gap, this article provides a timely and thorough overview of the methodology for customizing domain-specific FMs. It introduces basic concepts, outlines the general architecture, and surveys key methods for constructing domain-specific models. Furthermore, the article discusses various domains that can benefit from these specialized models and highlights the challenges ahead. Through this overview, we aim to offer valuable guidance and reference for researchers and practitioners from diverse fields to develop their own customized FMs.