# M-RAG: Reinforcing Large Language Model Performance through Retrieval-Augmented Generation with Multiple Partitions

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.16420 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.16420/

## Key facts

- Cited by 38 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in RAG pipeline design and evaluation, one of 15 directions in Retrieval-augmented generation.
- Builds on 38 of its 64 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 26 May 2024.

## Placed in

- Retrieval-augmented generation / [RAG pipeline design and evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/rag/rag-pipeline-design-and-evaluation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 38)

- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [Training language models to follow instructions with human feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.02155/) (2022)
- [Llama 2: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.09288/) (2023)
- [Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.11401/) (2020)
- [Dense Passage Retrieval for Open-Domain Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.04906/) (2020)
- [Playing Atari with Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1312.5602/) (2013)
- [Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Large Language Models: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.10997/) (2023)
- [Self-RAG: Learning to Retrieve, Generate, and Critique through Self-Reflection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.11511/) (2023)
- [A Call for Clarity in Reporting BLEU Scores](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.08771/) (2018)
- [WebGPT: Browser-assisted question-answering with human feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.09332/) (2021)
- [Don't Give Me the Details, Just the Summary! Topic-Aware Convolutional Neural Networks for Extreme Summarization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.08745/) (2018)
- [A Diversity-Promoting Objective Function for Neural Conversation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1510.03055/) (2015)
- [Gemma: Open Models Based on Gemini Research and Technology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.08295/) (2024)
- [Efficient and robust approximate nearest neighbor search using Hierarchical Navigable Small World graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.09320/) (2016)
- [DailyDialog: A Manually Labelled Multi-turn Dialogue Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.03957/) (2017)
- [Introduction to Multi-Armed Bandits](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.07272/) (2019)
- [Text and Code Embeddings by Contrastive Pre-Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.10005/) (2022)
- [Recursively Summarizing Books with Human Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.10862/) (2021)
- [Way Off-Policy Batch Deep Reinforcement Learning of Implicit Human Preferences in Dialog](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.00456/) (2019)
- [RECOMP: Improving Retrieval-Augmented LMs with Compression and Selective Augmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.04408/) (2023)
- [Promptagator: Few-shot Dense Retrieval From 8 Examples](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.11755/) (2022)
- [RA-DIT: Retrieval-Augmented Dual Instruction Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.01352/) (2023)
- [BIGPATENT: A Large-Scale Dataset for Abstractive and Coherent Summarization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.03741/) (2019)
- [Walking Down the Memory Maze: Beyond Context Limit through Interactive Reading](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.05029/) (2023)
- [Lift Yourself Up: Retrieval-augmented Text Generation with Self Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.02437/) (2023)
- [UPRISE: Universal Prompt Retrieval for Improving Zero-Shot Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08518/) (2023)
- [Can Neural Machine Translation be Improved with User Feedback?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.05958/) (2018)
- [SCATTER: Selective Context Attentional Scene Text Recognizer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.11288/) (2020)
- [Training Data is More Valuable than You Think: A Simple and Effective Method by Retrieving from Training Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.08773/) (2022)
- [A Comprehensive Survey on Vector Database: Storage and Retrieval Technique, Challenge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.11703/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 38)

- [A Survey of Graph Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Customized Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.13958/) (2025)
- [StructRAG: Boosting Knowledge Intensive Reasoning of LLMs via Inference-time Hybrid Information Structurization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.08815/) (2024)
- [MAGMA: A Multi-Graph based Agentic Memory Architecture for AI Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.03236/) (2026)
- [From Web Search towards Agentic Deep Research: Incentivizing Search with Reasoning Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.18959/) (2025)
- [Towards Agentic RAG with Deep Reasoning: A Survey of RAG-Reasoning Systems in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.09477/) (2025)
- [Crafting Personalized Agents through Retrieval-Augmented Generation on Editable Memory Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.19401/) (2024)
- [Retrieval-Augmented Generation: A Comprehensive Survey of Architectures, Enhancements, and Robustness Frontiers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.00054/) (2025)
- [Silo-Bench: A Scalable Environment for Evaluating Distributed Coordination in Multi-Agent LLM Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.01045/) (2026)
- [HomeBench: Evaluating LLMs in Smart Homes with Valid and Invalid Instructions Across Single and Multiple Devices](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.19628/) (2025)
- [Loki's Dance of Illusions: A Comprehensive Survey of Hallucination in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.02870/) (2025)
- [CARROT: A Learned Cost-Constrained Retrieval Optimization System for RAG](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.00744/) (2024)
- [HAGE: Harnessing Agentic Memory via RL-Driven Weighted Graph Evolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.09942/) (2026)
- [Collaboration and Controversy Among Experts: Rumor Early Detection by Tuning a Comment Generator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.04076/) (2025)
- [REIS: A High-Performance and Energy-Efficient Retrieval System with In-Storage Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.16444/) (2025)
- [TracSum: A New Benchmark for Aspect-Based Summarization with Sentence-Level Traceability in Medical Domain](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.13798/) (2025)
- [A Scalable Data-Driven Framework for Systematic Analysis of SEC 10-K Filings Using Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.17581/) (2024)
- [Unlocking the Potentials of Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Diffusion Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.11342/) (2026)
- [BMAM: Brain-inspired Multi-Agent Memory Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.20465/) (2026)
- [ByteRover: Agent-Native Memory Through LLM-Curated Hierarchical Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.01599/) (2026)
- [RAGPulse: An Open-Source RAG Workload Trace to Optimize RAG Serving Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.12979/) (2025)
- [Reinforcement Fine-Tuning for History-Aware Dense Retriever in RAG](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.03645/) (2026)
- [IntrAgent: An LLM Agent for Content-Grounded Information Retrieval through Literature Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.22861/) (2026)
- [Pastiche Novel Generation Creating: Fan Fiction You Love in Your Favorite Author's Style](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.15616/) (2025)
- [From Deferral to Learning: Online In-Context Knowledge Distillation for LLM Cascades](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.22984/) (2025)
- [A Decentralized Retrieval Augmented Generation System with Source Reliabilities Secured on Blockchain](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.07577/) (2025)
- [Grounded by Experience: Generative Healthcare Prediction Augmented with Hierarchical Agentic Retrieval](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.13293/) (2025)
- [A3-Bench: Benchmarking Memory-Driven Scientific Reasoning via Anchor and Attractor Activation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.09274/) (2026)
- [A Component-Based Survey of Interactions between Large Language Models and Multi-Armed Bandits](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.12945/) (2026)
- [MoK-RAG: Mixture of Knowledge Paths Enhanced Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Embodied AI Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.13882/) (2025)
- [Separate the Wheat from the Chaff: Winnowing Down Divergent Views in Retrieval Augmented Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.04700/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) enhances Large Language Models (LLMs) by retrieving relevant memories from an external database. However, existing RAG methods typically organize all memories in a whole database, potentially limiting focus on crucial memories and introducing noise. In this paper, we introduce a multiple partition paradigm for RAG (called M-RAG), where each database partition serves as a basic unit for RAG execution. Based on this paradigm, we propose a novel framework that leverages LLMs with Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning to optimize different language generation tasks explicitly. Through comprehensive experiments conducted on seven datasets, spanning three language generation tasks and involving three distinct language model architectures, we confirm that M-RAG consistently outperforms various baseline methods, achieving improvements of 11%, 8%, and 12% for text summarization, machine translation, and dialogue generation, respectively.