KVarN: Native vLLM backend for KV-cache quantization by Huawei

19 hours ago (github.com)

Better performance than TQ and better quality than FP16?

Am I reading this right??

Why this is not a PR for vLLM ?

  • Last I heard, vLLM was backed by a company that has raised $150m in seed funding. I'm sure they've got the resources to port it.

  • It's the output of a research paper; the authors are not trying to build up vLLM, and they probably have no incentive to do so. You can submit a PR, though! It's easier now while the divergence is low, so don't wait. Since there are six authors, I bet you could get help with the inevitable review chores if you just take the step of creating the PR.

    edit: It might not be clear that it is based on vLLM 0.22, which is the current version: https://github.com/huawei-csl/KVarN/commit/d6290e99098d7426d.... All you have to do is create a diff off it; it's fairly straightforward.

    • And with the help of AI, pointing at AI at this paper and saying "making a vLLM PR from this paper" tends to work surprisingly well, even if you need to nudge it a little bit along the way.