Dense2MoE: Restructuring Diffusion Transformer to MoE for Efficient Text-to-Image Generation

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Zheng, Youwei, Ren, Yuxi, Xia, Xin, Xiao, Xuefeng, Xie, Xiaohua
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Zheng, Youwei
Ren, Yuxi
Xia, Xin
Xiao, Xuefeng
Xie, Xiaohua
author_facet Zheng, Youwei
Ren, Yuxi
Xia, Xin
Xiao, Xuefeng
Xie, Xiaohua
contents Diffusion Transformer (DiT) has demonstrated remarkable performance in text-to-image generation; however, its large parameter size results in substantial inference overhead. Existing parameter compression methods primarily focus on pruning, but aggressive pruning often leads to severe performance degradation due to reduced model capacity. To address this limitation, we pioneer the transformation of a dense DiT into a Mixture of Experts (MoE) for structured sparsification, reducing the number of activated parameters while preserving model capacity. Specifically, we replace the Feed-Forward Networks (FFNs) in DiT Blocks with MoE layers, reducing the number of activated parameters in the FFNs by 62.5\%. Furthermore, we propose the Mixture of Blocks (MoB) to selectively activate DiT blocks, thereby further enhancing sparsity. To ensure an effective dense-to-MoE conversion, we design a multi-step distillation pipeline, incorporating Taylor metric-based expert initialization, knowledge distillation with load balancing, and group feature loss for MoB optimization. We transform large diffusion transformers (e.g., FLUX.1 [dev]) into an MoE structure, reducing activated parameters by 60\% while maintaining original performance and surpassing pruning-based approaches in extensive experiments. Overall, Dense2MoE establishes a new paradigm for efficient text-to-image generation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_09094
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Dense2MoE: Restructuring Diffusion Transformer to MoE for Efficient Text-to-Image Generation
Zheng, Youwei
Ren, Yuxi
Xia, Xin
Xiao, Xuefeng
Xie, Xiaohua
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Diffusion Transformer (DiT) has demonstrated remarkable performance in text-to-image generation; however, its large parameter size results in substantial inference overhead. Existing parameter compression methods primarily focus on pruning, but aggressive pruning often leads to severe performance degradation due to reduced model capacity. To address this limitation, we pioneer the transformation of a dense DiT into a Mixture of Experts (MoE) for structured sparsification, reducing the number of activated parameters while preserving model capacity. Specifically, we replace the Feed-Forward Networks (FFNs) in DiT Blocks with MoE layers, reducing the number of activated parameters in the FFNs by 62.5\%. Furthermore, we propose the Mixture of Blocks (MoB) to selectively activate DiT blocks, thereby further enhancing sparsity. To ensure an effective dense-to-MoE conversion, we design a multi-step distillation pipeline, incorporating Taylor metric-based expert initialization, knowledge distillation with load balancing, and group feature loss for MoB optimization. We transform large diffusion transformers (e.g., FLUX.1 [dev]) into an MoE structure, reducing activated parameters by 60\% while maintaining original performance and surpassing pruning-based approaches in extensive experiments. Overall, Dense2MoE establishes a new paradigm for efficient text-to-image generation.
title Dense2MoE: Restructuring Diffusion Transformer to MoE for Efficient Text-to-Image Generation
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09094