diff --git a/src/MaxText/checkpointing.py b/src/MaxText/checkpointing.py
index 27fb674ff3..0204470391 100644
--- a/src/MaxText/checkpointing.py
+++ b/src/MaxText/checkpointing.py
@@ -547,16 +547,34 @@ def map_to_pspec(data):
             dtype=data.dtype,
         )
 
+      # Cache the original ArrayHandler before potentially overriding it.
+      # This is the same handler used when enable_single_replica_ckpt_restoring=False.
+      original_array_handler = ocp.type_handlers.get_type_handler(jax.Array)
+
+      # Register SingleReplicaArrayHandler globally for restore (if enabled)
       if enable_single_replica_ckpt_restoring:
-        array_handler = ocp.type_handlers.SingleReplicaArrayHandler(
+        single_replica_handler = ocp.type_handlers.SingleReplicaArrayHandler(
             replica_axis_index=0,
             broadcast_memory_limit_bytes=1024 * 1024 * 1000,  # 1000 MB limit
         )
-        ocp.type_handlers.register_type_handler(jax.Array, array_handler, override=True)
+        ocp.type_handlers.register_type_handler(jax.Array, single_replica_handler, override=True)
 
       restore_args = jax.tree_util.tree_map(map_to_pspec, abstract_unboxed_pre_state)
       checkpoint_args = ocp.args.PyTreeRestore(item=abstract_unboxed_pre_state, restore_args=restore_args)
 
+      def _restore_original_array_handler():
+        """Restore the original ArrayHandler after SingleReplicaArrayHandler restore.
+
+        This is critical because SingleReplicaArrayHandler is designed for restore only.
+        Using it for saves will cause missing array_metadatas files and checkpoint failures.
+        We restore the EXACT handler that was in place before, not a new instance.
+        """
+        if enable_single_replica_ckpt_restoring:
+          max_logging.log("Restoring original ArrayHandler after SingleReplicaArrayHandler restore...")
+          # Re-register the original handler that was cached before the override
+          ocp.type_handlers.register_type_handler(jax.Array, original_array_handler, override=True)
+          max_logging.log("Original ArrayHandler restored successfully.")
+
       match (checkpoint_manager, dataset_type, data_iterator):
         # Case 1: Matches if 'checkpoint_manager' is an instance of either EmergencyCheckpointManager
         # or EmergencyReplicatorCheckpointManager. The '_' indicates that 'dataset_type' and
@@ -564,10 +582,12 @@ def map_to_pspec(data):
         case (checkpoint_manager, _, _) if isinstance(
             checkpoint_manager, (EmergencyCheckpointManager, EmergencyReplicatorCheckpointManager)
         ):
-          return (
+          result = (
               checkpoint_manager.restore(step, args=Composite(state=checkpoint_args)).state,
               None,
           )
+          _restore_original_array_handler()
+          return result
         # Case 2: Matches if dataset type is "grain" and the data iterator is not a
         # PlaceHolderDataIterator or RemoteIterator and a specific checkpoint file exists for the iterator
         case (
@@ -581,13 +601,17 @@ def map_to_pspec(data):
             and not _is_remote_iterator(data_iterator)
             and (checkpoint_manager.directory / str(step) / "iter").exists()
         ):
-          return _restore_grain_iterator(
+          result = _restore_grain_iterator(
               checkpoint_manager, step, data_iterator, checkpoint_args, expansion_factor_real_data
           )
+          _restore_original_array_handler()
+          return result
         # Case 3: Default/Fallback case.
         # This case acts as a wildcard ('_') and matches if none of the preceding cases were met.
         case _:
-          return (checkpoint_manager.restore(step, args=Composite(items=checkpoint_args)), None)
+          result = (checkpoint_manager.restore(step, args=Composite(items=checkpoint_args)), None)
+          _restore_original_array_handler()
+          return result
 
   if load_parameters_from_path != "":
     restored_params = load_params_from_path(
diff --git a/src/MaxText/configs/base.yml b/src/MaxText/configs/base.yml
index 2b4c338e78..1806434e76 100644
--- a/src/MaxText/configs/base.yml
+++ b/src/MaxText/configs/base.yml
@@ -178,6 +178,7 @@ megablox: true
 sparse_matmul: true
 capacity_factor: -1.0 # a factor to decide expert capacity for token dropping, and no dropping by default
 load_balance_loss_weight: 0.0 # weight for the load balance loss
+expert_balance: False # whether or not to do expert balancing
 use_random_routing: false # whether to use random routing for debug/test purpose
 use_custom_sort_vjp: true # whether to use a custom VJP sort for efficient backward pass processing in sparse matmul
 use_ring_of_experts: false # whether to use ring of experts for sparse matmul expert parallelism
diff --git a/src/MaxText/configs/types.py b/src/MaxText/configs/types.py
index e66d75cdca..3eec20cb56 100644
--- a/src/MaxText/configs/types.py
+++ b/src/MaxText/configs/types.py
@@ -553,6 +553,7 @@ class MoEGeneral(BaseModel):
   num_experts_per_tok: PositiveInt = Field(1, description="The number of experts to route each token to.")
   capacity_factor: float = Field(-1.0, description="Expert capacity factor. If < 0, no token dropping.")
   load_balance_loss_weight: NonNegativeFloat = Field(0.0, description="Weight for the load balancing auxiliary loss.")
+  expert_balance: bool = Field(False, description="Whether to use expert balancing.")
   use_custom_sort_vjp: bool = Field(
       True, description="Whether to use a custom VJP sort for efficient backward pass processing in sparse matmul."
   )
diff --git a/src/MaxText/layers/attention_op.py b/src/MaxText/layers/attention_op.py
index 1961ee1fff..ba5fc7c13d 100644
--- a/src/MaxText/layers/attention_op.py
+++ b/src/MaxText/layers/attention_op.py
@@ -1399,6 +1399,10 @@ def cudnn_flash_attention(
       attn_mask = None
       dummy_attn_mask = None
       mask_type = "causal"
+    elif self.config.dataset_type == "synthetic":
+      attn_mask = None
+      dummy_attn_mask = None
+      mask_type = "causal"
     else:
       # Default case: no packing, no context parallelism
       dummy_attn_mask = jnp.zeros((1, 1, 1, self.max_target_length, self.max_target_length), dtype=jnp.uint8)
@@ -1416,12 +1420,11 @@ def cudnn_flash_attention(
         dtype=self.dtype,
         float32_logits=self.float32_logits,
         qkv_layout=qkv_layout,
-        scale_factor=1.0,
         transpose_batch_sequence=False,
         window_size=sliding_window_size,
         context_parallel_causal_load_balanced=self.config.context_parallel_load_balance,
         context_parallel_axis="context",
-        context_parallel_strategy=self.config.context_parallel_strategy,
+        # context_parallel_strategy=self.config.context_parallel_strategy,
         max_segments_per_seq=max_segments_per_seq,
     )
 
diff --git a/src/MaxText/layers/attentions.py b/src/MaxText/layers/attentions.py
index 4a712adb5f..c9f1edba6e 100644
--- a/src/MaxText/layers/attentions.py
+++ b/src/MaxText/layers/attentions.py
@@ -549,7 +549,7 @@ def init_query_w(self, inputs_q_shape: Tuple) -> nnx.Module:
     if self.config.use_qk_norm or (self.query_pre_attn_scalar is not None and self.query_pre_attn_scalar != 1.0):
       depth_scaling = 1.0
     else:
-      depth_scaling = jnp.sqrt(self.head_dim).astype(self.dtype)
+      depth_scaling = 1.0
 
     def query_init(*args):
       # pylint: disable=no-value-for-parameter
diff --git a/src/MaxText/layers/moe.py b/src/MaxText/layers/moe.py
index e5cf2a4d06..edaaa393b6 100644
--- a/src/MaxText/layers/moe.py
+++ b/src/MaxText/layers/moe.py
@@ -1583,7 +1583,7 @@ def get_einsum(
       def aqt_einsum(*args, **kwargs):  # pylint: disable=unused-argument
         # simply skip kwargs, since aqt einsum doesn't support any kwargs
         # like precision
-        is_aqt = not isinstance(self.quant, quantizations.Fp8Quantization)
+        is_aqt = not ( isinstance(self.quant, quantizations.Fp8Quantization) or isinstance(self.quant, quantizations.NANOOFp8Quantization) )
         kw = {"mesh_axes": rhs_mesh_axes} if is_aqt else {"dtype": self.dtype}
         return self.quant.einsum(**kw)(*args)  # pytype: disable=attribute-error
 
@@ -1618,6 +1618,28 @@ def dense_matmul(
       wo_bias,
   ) -> tuple[jax.Array, Optional[jax.Array], Optional[jax.Array]]:
     """Dense matrix multiplication."""
+    if self.config.expert_balance:
+      ######################################################################################################
+      ############################## start hard code for uniform expert ####################################
+      # Create deterministic rotational pattern for gate logits
+      batch_size, seq_len, num_experts = gate_logits.shape
+
+      # Create base weights for experts (increasing values)
+      base_weights = jnp.linspace(0.1, 0.1 * num_experts, num_experts, dtype=gate_logits.dtype)
+
+      # Create position-based indices matrix [seq_len, num_experts]
+      # Each row represents which index in base_weights to use after rotation
+      indices = (jnp.arange(num_experts)[None, :] + jnp.arange(seq_len)[:, None]) % num_experts
+
+      # Use advanced indexing to create the rotated weights matrix in one operation
+      # This takes the appropriate weight for each position based on the rotation pattern
+      rotated_weights = base_weights[indices]
+
+      # Broadcast to batch dimension
+      gate_logits = jnp.broadcast_to(rotated_weights[None, :, :], (batch_size, seq_len, num_experts))
+      ############################################# end ####################################################
+      ######################################################################################################
+
     # gate_logits: batch, length, expert
     gate_logits = self._maybe_shard_with_logical(gate_logits, ("activation_batch", "activation_norm_length", None))
     if self.config.model_name.startswith("deepseek3"):
diff --git a/src/MaxText/layers/quantizations.py b/src/MaxText/layers/quantizations.py
index d0f9353b6c..c9bf025533 100644
--- a/src/MaxText/layers/quantizations.py
+++ b/src/MaxText/layers/quantizations.py
@@ -296,6 +296,8 @@ def dot_general_cls(self, mesh_axes: Tuple[str, ...] = ()):
     """Returns dot_general configured with aqt params."""
     return nn.NANOOFp8DotGeneralOp
 
+  def einsum(self, dtype: DType = jnp.float32):
+    return Fp8Einsum(dtype=dtype,e4m3_dtype=jnp.float8_e4m3fnuz,e5m2_dtype=jnp.float8_e5m2fnuz)
 
 def _get_int8_quant_config(config):
   drhs_bits = None
diff --git a/src/MaxText/max_utils.py b/src/MaxText/max_utils.py
index 510878f9be..7c19be1184 100644
--- a/src/MaxText/max_utils.py
+++ b/src/MaxText/max_utils.py
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@
 from collections.abc import Sequence
 import functools
 from functools import partial
+import json
 import os
 import socket
 import subprocess
@@ -705,6 +706,36 @@ def print_system_information():
   max_logging.log(f"System Information: Jaxlib Version: {jax.lib.__version__}")
   max_logging.log(f"System Information: Jax Backend: {jax.extend.backend.get_backend().platform_version}")
 
+  devices = jax.devices()
+  max_logging.log(f"System Information: Number of devices: {len(devices)}, jax path {jax.__file__}")
+  for i, device in enumerate(devices):
+    if device.local_hardware_id is not None:
+      max_logging.log(
+          f"System Information: Device {i}: {device.id} "
+          f"(Local id: {device.local_hardware_id}, Process index: {device.process_index})"
+      )
+
+
+def save_device_information(config):
+  """Convert device information to JSON format."""
+  devices = jax.devices()
+  device_info = {'hostname': socket.gethostname(), 'devices': []}
+
+  for device in devices:
+    if device.local_hardware_id is not None:
+      info = {
+          "id": device.id,
+          "local_hardware_id": device.local_hardware_id,
+          "process_index": device.process_index,
+          "device_kind": device.device_kind,
+          "platform_version": jax.extend.backend.get_backend().platform_version,
+      }
+      device_info['devices'].append(info)
+  # Save to JSON file
+  device_info_path = os.path.join(config.base_output_directory, "device_info.json")
+  with open(device_info_path, "w") as f:
+    json.dump(device_info, f, indent=4)
+
 
 def permute_to_match_maxtext_rope(arr):
   """Permutes the Huggingface Rope to match the MaxText logic."""
diff --git a/src/MaxText/train.py b/src/MaxText/train.py
index 3fae3e056a..e4f3303017 100644
--- a/src/MaxText/train.py
+++ b/src/MaxText/train.py
@@ -453,6 +453,7 @@ def train_loop(config, recorder, state=None):
             if config.shard_optimizer_over_data:
               state = sharding.maybe_shard_with_name(state, state_mesh_shardings, config.shard_mode)
             state, metrics = p_train_step(state, example_batch, nextrng)
+          jax.block_until_ready(state)
 
       step_time_delta = datetime.datetime.now() - last_step_completion
       last_step_completion = datetime.datetime.now()
@@ -529,6 +530,7 @@ def initialize(argv: Sequence[str]) -> tuple[pyconfig.HyperParameters, Any, Any]
   config = pyconfig.initialize(argv)
   max_utils.print_system_information()
   validate_train_config(config)
+  max_utils.save_device_information(config)
   jax.config.update("jax_use_shardy_partitioner", config.shardy)
   # update explicit sharding-supported config
   if config.shard_mode == ShardMode.EXPLICIT: