$R^2$-dLLM: Accelerating Diffusion Large Language Models via Spatio-Temporal Redundancy Reduction

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Du, Zhenbang, Xia, Kejing, Zhong, Xinrui, Fu, Yonggan, Oswald, Nicolai, Ji, Binfei, Khailany, Brucek, Molchanov, Pavlo, Lin, Yingyan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866918459037712384
author Du, Zhenbang
Xia, Kejing
Zhong, Xinrui
Fu, Yonggan
Oswald, Nicolai
Ji, Binfei
Khailany, Brucek
Molchanov, Pavlo
Lin, Yingyan
author_facet Du, Zhenbang
Xia, Kejing
Zhong, Xinrui
Fu, Yonggan
Oswald, Nicolai
Ji, Binfei
Khailany, Brucek
Molchanov, Pavlo
Lin, Yingyan
contents Diffusion Large Language Models (dLLMs) have emerged as a promising alternative to autoregressive generation by enabling parallel token prediction. However, practical dLLM decoding still suffers from high inference latency, which limits deployment. In this work, we observe that a substantial part of this inefficiency comes from recurring redundancy in the decoding process, including spatial redundancy caused by confidence clusters and positional ambiguity, and temporal redundancy caused by repeatedly remasking predictions that have already stabilized. Motivated by these patterns, we propose $R^2$-dLLM, a unified framework for reducing decoding redundancy from both inference and training perspectives. At inference time, we introduce training-free decoding rules that aggregate local confidence and token predictions, and finalize temporally stable tokens to avoid redundant decoding steps. We further propose a redundancy-aware supervised fine-tuning pipeline that aligns the model with efficient decoding trajectories and reduces reliance on manually tuned thresholds. Experiments demonstrate that $R^2$-dLLM consistently reduces the number of decoding steps by up to 75% compared to existing decoding strategies, while maintaining competitive generation quality across different models and tasks. These results validate that decoding redundancy is a central bottleneck in dLLMs, and that explicitly reducing it yields substantial practical efficiency gains.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_18995
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle $R^2$-dLLM: Accelerating Diffusion Large Language Models via Spatio-Temporal Redundancy Reduction
Du, Zhenbang
Xia, Kejing
Zhong, Xinrui
Fu, Yonggan
Oswald, Nicolai
Ji, Binfei
Khailany, Brucek
Molchanov, Pavlo
Lin, Yingyan
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Diffusion Large Language Models (dLLMs) have emerged as a promising alternative to autoregressive generation by enabling parallel token prediction. However, practical dLLM decoding still suffers from high inference latency, which limits deployment. In this work, we observe that a substantial part of this inefficiency comes from recurring redundancy in the decoding process, including spatial redundancy caused by confidence clusters and positional ambiguity, and temporal redundancy caused by repeatedly remasking predictions that have already stabilized. Motivated by these patterns, we propose $R^2$-dLLM, a unified framework for reducing decoding redundancy from both inference and training perspectives. At inference time, we introduce training-free decoding rules that aggregate local confidence and token predictions, and finalize temporally stable tokens to avoid redundant decoding steps. We further propose a redundancy-aware supervised fine-tuning pipeline that aligns the model with efficient decoding trajectories and reduces reliance on manually tuned thresholds. Experiments demonstrate that $R^2$-dLLM consistently reduces the number of decoding steps by up to 75% compared to existing decoding strategies, while maintaining competitive generation quality across different models and tasks. These results validate that decoding redundancy is a central bottleneck in dLLMs, and that explicitly reducing it yields substantial practical efficiency gains.
title $R^2$-dLLM: Accelerating Diffusion Large Language Models via Spatio-Temporal Redundancy Reduction
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.18995