OCTOPUS: Optimized KV Cache for Transformers via Octahedral Parametrization Under optimal Squared error quantization

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Boss, Mark, Voleti, Vikram, Donné, Simon, Vainer, Shimon
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Boss, Mark
Voleti, Vikram
Donné, Simon
Vainer, Shimon
author_facet Boss, Mark
Voleti, Vikram
Donné, Simon
Vainer, Shimon
contents The key-value (KV) cache dominates memory bandwidth and footprint in long-context autoregressive inference. Recent rotation-preconditioned codecs (TurboQuant, PolarQuant) show that a structured random rotation followed by a per-coordinate scalar quantizer matched to an analytically tractable marginal is a near-optimal recipe for KV compression. OCTOPUS advances this paradigm through joint quantization of rotated coordinate triplets. Each triplet's direction is mapped to a square via an octahedral parameterization, and the two resulting coordinates and the triplet norm are Lloyd-Max quantized against implementation-matched marginals. Optimizing the per-triplet squared error gives a strictly non-uniform bit allocation depending only on the total dimensionality of the keys. We find the finite-dimensional quality optimum with sweeps to be constant on every real decoder we test. The codec is data-oblivious, online, and deterministic given a seed. Across text, video, and audio, OCTOPUS matches or beats every prior rotation codec at every reported bit width and metric, with a lead that grows as bits drop for extreme compression. Furthermore, a fused Triton implementation reconstructs keys on the fly without materializing the uncompressed key, so the codec adds no decode-time bandwidth or latency over the existing dequantization. Project Page: https://octopus-quant.github.io/
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_21226
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle OCTOPUS: Optimized KV Cache for Transformers via Octahedral Parametrization Under optimal Squared error quantization
Boss, Mark
Voleti, Vikram
Donné, Simon
Vainer, Shimon
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
The key-value (KV) cache dominates memory bandwidth and footprint in long-context autoregressive inference. Recent rotation-preconditioned codecs (TurboQuant, PolarQuant) show that a structured random rotation followed by a per-coordinate scalar quantizer matched to an analytically tractable marginal is a near-optimal recipe for KV compression. OCTOPUS advances this paradigm through joint quantization of rotated coordinate triplets. Each triplet's direction is mapped to a square via an octahedral parameterization, and the two resulting coordinates and the triplet norm are Lloyd-Max quantized against implementation-matched marginals. Optimizing the per-triplet squared error gives a strictly non-uniform bit allocation depending only on the total dimensionality of the keys. We find the finite-dimensional quality optimum with sweeps to be constant on every real decoder we test. The codec is data-oblivious, online, and deterministic given a seed. Across text, video, and audio, OCTOPUS matches or beats every prior rotation codec at every reported bit width and metric, with a lead that grows as bits drop for extreme compression. Furthermore, a fused Triton implementation reconstructs keys on the fly without materializing the uncompressed key, so the codec adds no decode-time bandwidth or latency over the existing dequantization. Project Page: https://octopus-quant.github.io/
title OCTOPUS: Optimized KV Cache for Transformers via Octahedral Parametrization Under optimal Squared error quantization
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.21226