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Do Large Language Models Need a Content Delivery Network? (arxiv.org)
2 points by PaulHoule on Oct 3, 2024 | hide | past | pdf | discuss on HN

In plain words: Instead of retraining a model or pasting facts into prompts, this idea stores the model's precomputed internal memory of the knowledge and hands it over when needed. A layer that caches and moves these memories should cut cost and speed answers; a prototype is public.

Abstract

As the use of large language models (LLMs) expands rapidly, so does the range of knowledge needed to supplement various LLM queries. Thus, enabling flexible and efficient injection of new knowledge in LLM inference is critical. Three high-level options exist: (i) embedding the knowledge in LLM's weights (i.e., fine-tuning), (ii) including the knowledge as a part of LLM's text input (i.e., in-context learning), or (iii) injecting the KV caches of the new knowledge to LLM during prefill. This paper argues that, although fine-tuning and in-context learning are popular, using KV caches as the medium of knowledge could simultaneously enable more modular management of knowledge injection and more efficient LLM serving with low cost and fast response. To realize these benefits, we envision a Knowledge Delivery Network (KDN), a new system component in LLM services that dynamically optimizes the storage, transfer, and composition of KV cache across LLM engines and other compute and storage resources. We believe that, just like content delivery networks (CDNs), such as Akamai, enabled the success of the Internet ecosystem through their efficient data delivery, KDNs will be critical to the success of LLM applications through their efficient knowledge delivery. We have open-sourced a KDN prototype at https://github.com/LMCache/LMCache.

Yihua Cheng, Kuntai Du, Jiayi Yao, Junchen Jiang
arXiv:2409.13761 · cs.CL, cs.AI · submitted Sep 16, 2024 · updated Oct 21, 2024
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