arXiv Machine Learning

Denoising Hierarchical Representations: Joint Continuous Diffusion for Language Modeling

The paper introduces Hierarchical Continuous Diffusion Language Models (H-CDLMs), a framework that jointly diffuses multiple token modalities—individual tokens and coarser clusters of token embeddings—to enhance continuous diffusion language models. Applied to the CoBit architecture, the resulting H-CoBit achieves significant empirical gains, improving MAUVE scores and achieving lower generative perplexity on LM1B and OWT, while also outperforming prior continuous diffusion models on GSM8K. The approach generalizes to other continuous generative paradigms, as shown by consistent improvements when applied to the flow matching model FLM.

arXiv AI
6d ago

Hierarchical Continuous Diffusion Language Models

Hierarchical Continuous Diffusion Language Models (HC‑DLM) combine discrete token generation with a continuous latent trajectory in a single denoising process, addressing the independence bottleneck of parallel decoding in discrete diffusion models. The training objective is derived from a variational bound on token likelihood, and the latent state is the sole persistent generative element, with tokens read out and fed back at each step. Experiments on Sudoku, Countdown, and LM1B show HC‑DLM outperforming both discrete and continuous diffusion baselines in puzzle accuracy and generative perplexity.

By Hui Ren, Zihan Li, Chang Liu, Huidong Liu, Alexander Schwing
arXiv AI
Jun 15

Residual Context Diffusion Language Models

arXiv:2601. 22954v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Diffusion Large Language Models (dLLMs) have emerged as a promising alternative to purely autoregressive language models because they can decode multiple tokens in parallel.

By Yuezhou Hu, Harman Singh, Monishwaran Maheswaran, Haocheng Xi, Coleman Hooper, Jintao Zhang, Aditya Tomar, Michael W. Mahoney, Sewon Min, Mehrdad Farajtabar, Kurt Keutzer, Amir Gholami, Chenfeng Xu
arXiv AI
3d ago

Large Language Continuous Diffusion Models

The paper introduces Sigma, a large-scale continuous diffusion language model (3B/8B parameters) that uses steerable, low-dimensional ODE/SDE latent trajectories to address the non-smoothness of discrete diffusion models. Sigma is trained blockwise via likelihood optimization, jointly denoises Gaussian-corrupted token embeddings, and learns an optimal embedding geometry, leveraging pre-trained autoregressive weights for faster training. During inference, classifier-free guidance and score temperature are identified as essential for high-fidelity reasoning and coding, and Sigma matches or exceeds discrete models on benchmarks such as GSM8K, Minerva, HumanEval, MBPP, MATH-500, and AIME, while also revealing unique structural benefits like embedding-space steering and graceful degradation for low NFEs.

By Zhihan Yang, Wei Guo, Jean-Marie Lemercier, Simon Welker, Yonggan Fu, Mohammad Mahdi Kamani, Sajad Norouzi, Julius Berner, Tomas Geffner, Karsten Kreis, Yongxin Chen, Molei Tao, John Thickstun, Pavlo Molchanov, Ante Juki\'c, Arash Vahdat, Morteza Mardani
arXiv Computation and Language
Aug 25

Accelerating Diffusion Language Models via Structured Suffix Modeling

The paper introduces a training‑free structured suffix modeling technique to accelerate Diffusion Language Models (DLMs). It partitions the suffix into local, middle, and tail regions, retaining varying numbers of tokens per region and incorporating previous decoding results into current token representations. Experiments on three DLMs show significant speedups—up to 72.81× in long‑sequence inference—while often improving performance, and the method is compatible with existing acceleration strategies.

By Zifeng Cheng, Keda Li, Zhiwei Jiang, Cong Wang, Fei Shen, Qing Gu
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 7

Distilled Continuous Diffusion Language Models Can Write Code in Few Steps---or One

PlaidQ is a 0.7B continuous diffusion language model designed for code generation. By distilling its iterative refinement trajectory into only a few denoising steps—or even a single step—PlaidQ achieves competitive performance with discrete diffusion models while dramatically reducing inference time. The study demonstrates that continuous diffusion can be effectively compressed, enabling efficient and accurate code generation with minimal computational overhead.

By Fred Zhangzhi Peng, Kaiwen Zheng, Anru R. Zhang
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 4

Unlocking Lossless Speedups in LLMs via Discrete Diffusion

arXiv:2609. 04010v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) owe much of their success to next-token prediction (NTP), but their autoregressive (AR) structure requires slow, sequential token generation.

By Subham Sekhar Sahoo, Lingjie Chen, Khiem Pham, Jonathan Geuter, Chaitanya Dwivedi, Varad Pimpalkhute, Yash Akhauri, Alexander Moreno, Mikhail Yurochkin, Zhenting Wang, Mostafa Elhoushi, Nolan Dey, Shane Bergsma, Joel Hestness, John Thickstun, Eric Xing, Zhengzhong Liu
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 16

Window-Diffusion: Accelerating Diffusion Language Model Inference with Windowed Token Pruning and Caching

The paper introduces Window-Diffusion, a method that accelerates diffusion language model inference by pruning and caching tokens within a sliding window. It categorizes undecoded tokens into active, buffer, and far-field groups, computing only the first two while discarding the rest. Experiments on LLaDA and Dream demonstrate up to 99× speedup with minimal loss in generation quality.

By Fengrui Zuo, Zhiwei Ke, Yiming Liu, Wenqi Lou, Chao Wang, Xuehai Zhou