Streaming Speech Recognition with Decoder-Only Large Language Models and Latency Optimization

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Wan, Genshun, Zhang, Wenhui, Zhang, Jing-Xuan, Xiong, Shifu, Gao, Jianqing, Ye, Zhongfu
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Wan, Genshun
Zhang, Wenhui
Zhang, Jing-Xuan
Xiong, Shifu
Gao, Jianqing
Ye, Zhongfu
author_facet Wan, Genshun
Zhang, Wenhui
Zhang, Jing-Xuan
Xiong, Shifu
Gao, Jianqing
Ye, Zhongfu
contents Recent advances have demonstrated the potential of decoderonly large language models (LLMs) for automatic speech recognition (ASR). However, enabling streaming recognition within this framework remains a challenge. In this work, we propose a novel streaming ASR approach that integrates a read/write policy network with monotonic chunkwise attention (MoChA) to dynamically segment speech embeddings. These segments are interleaved with label sequences during training, enabling seamless integration with the LLM. During inference, the audio stream is buffered until the MoChA module triggers a read signal, at which point the buffered segment together with the previous token is fed into the LLM for the next token prediction. We also introduce a minimal-latency training objective to guide the policy network toward accurate segmentation boundaries. Furthermore, we adopt a joint training strategy in which a non-streaming LLM-ASR model and our streaming model share parameters. Experiments on the AISHELL-1 and AISHELL-2 Mandarin benchmarks demonstrate that our method consistently outperforms recent streaming ASR baselines, achieving character error rates of 5.1% and 5.5%, respectively. The latency optimization results in a 62.5% reduction in average token generation delay with negligible impact on recognition accuracy
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_22779
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Streaming Speech Recognition with Decoder-Only Large Language Models and Latency Optimization
Wan, Genshun
Zhang, Wenhui
Zhang, Jing-Xuan
Xiong, Shifu
Gao, Jianqing
Ye, Zhongfu
Audio and Speech Processing
Sound
Recent advances have demonstrated the potential of decoderonly large language models (LLMs) for automatic speech recognition (ASR). However, enabling streaming recognition within this framework remains a challenge. In this work, we propose a novel streaming ASR approach that integrates a read/write policy network with monotonic chunkwise attention (MoChA) to dynamically segment speech embeddings. These segments are interleaved with label sequences during training, enabling seamless integration with the LLM. During inference, the audio stream is buffered until the MoChA module triggers a read signal, at which point the buffered segment together with the previous token is fed into the LLM for the next token prediction. We also introduce a minimal-latency training objective to guide the policy network toward accurate segmentation boundaries. Furthermore, we adopt a joint training strategy in which a non-streaming LLM-ASR model and our streaming model share parameters. Experiments on the AISHELL-1 and AISHELL-2 Mandarin benchmarks demonstrate that our method consistently outperforms recent streaming ASR baselines, achieving character error rates of 5.1% and 5.5%, respectively. The latency optimization results in a 62.5% reduction in average token generation delay with negligible impact on recognition accuracy
title Streaming Speech Recognition with Decoder-Only Large Language Models and Latency Optimization
topic Audio and Speech Processing
Sound
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.22779