# Cached Adaptive Token Merging: Dynamic Token Reduction and Redundant Computation Elimination in Diffusion Model

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.00946 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.00946/

## Key facts

- Cited by 16 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Diffusion foundations and sampling, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 45 of its 53 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Jan 2025.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Diffusion foundations and sampling](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/diffusion-foundations-and-sampling/)
- Efficient LLM inference and serving / [Visual token pruning in multimodal models](https://mlsanity.com/inference/visual-token-pruning-in-multimodal-models/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 45)

- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.03585/) (2015)
- [Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06125/) (2022)
- [Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11487/) (2022)
- [Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09748/) (2022)
- [DreamFusion: Text-to-3D using 2D Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14988/) (2022)
- [Improved Techniques for Training GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.03498/) (2016)
- [InstructPix2Pix: Learning to Follow Image Editing Instructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09800/) (2022)
- [DPM-Solver: A Fast ODE Solver for Diffusion Probabilistic Model Sampling in Around 10 Steps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.00927/) (2022)
- [Imagen Video: High Definition Video Generation with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02303/) (2022)
- [Make-A-Video: Text-to-Video Generation without Text-Video Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14792/) (2022)
- [DiffWave: A Versatile Diffusion Model for Audio Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.09761/) (2020)
- [Diffusion-LM Improves Controllable Text Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.14217/) (2022)
- [Token Merging: Your ViT But Faster](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.09461/) (2022)
- [Denoising Diffusion Restoration Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.11793/) (2022)
- [Blended Diffusion for Text-driven Editing of Natural Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.14818/) (2021)
- [DynamicViT: Efficient Vision Transformers with Dynamic Token Sparsification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.02034/) (2021)
- [On Distillation of Guided Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03142/) (2022)
- [Pseudo Numerical Methods for Diffusion Models on Manifolds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.09778/) (2022)
- [DiffuSeq: Sequence to Sequence Text Generation with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.08933/) (2022)
- [Grad-TTS: A Diffusion Probabilistic Model for Text-to-Speech](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.06337/) (2021)
- [SRDiff: Single Image Super-Resolution with Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.14951/) (2021)
- [AdaViT: Adaptive Tokens for Efficient Vision Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.07658/) (2021)
- [DeepCache: Accelerating Diffusion Models for Free](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00858/) (2023)
- [Knowledge Distillation in Iterative Generative Models for Improved Sampling Speed](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.02388/) (2021)
- [Analytic-DPM: an Analytic Estimate of the Optimal Reverse Variance in Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.06503/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 16 of 16)

- [From Reusing to Forecasting: Accelerating Diffusion Models with TaylorSeers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.06923/) (2025)
- [Compute Only 16 Tokens in One Timestep: Accelerating Diffusion Transformers with Cluster-Driven Feature Caching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.10312/) (2025)
- [SADA: Stability-guided Adaptive Diffusion Acceleration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.17135/) (2025)
- [TC-Pad'e: Trajectory-Consistent Pad'e Approximation for Diffusion Acceleration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.02943/) (2026)
- [DisCa: Accelerating Video Diffusion Transformers with Distillation-Compatible Learnable Feature Caching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.05449/) (2026)
- [Adaptive Spectral Feature Forecasting for Diffusion Sampling Acceleration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.01623/) (2026)
- [Fewer Denoising Steps or Cheaper Per-Step Inference: Towards Compute-Optimal Diffusion Model Deployment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.06160/) (2025)
- [LESA: Learnable Stage-Aware Predictors for Diffusion Model Acceleration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.20497/) (2026)
- [DDiT: Dynamic Patch Scheduling for Efficient Diffusion Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.16968/) (2026)
- [ReCache: Learning Budget-Aware Caching Schedules for Diffusion Models via REINFORCE](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.06060/) (2026)
- [Plug-and-Play Fidelity Optimization for Diffusion Transformer Acceleration via Cumulative Error Minimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.23258/) (2025)
- [Shiva-DiT: Residual-Based Differentiable Top-k Selection for Efficient Diffusion Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.05605/) (2026)
- [Beyond Fixed Formulas: Data-Driven Linear Predictor for Efficient Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.26365/) (2026)
- [DiTReducio: A Training-Free Acceleration for DiT-Based TTS via Progressive Calibration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.09748/) (2025)
- [SODA: Sensitivity-Oriented Dynamic Acceleration for Diffusion Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.07057/) (2026)
- [Accelerating Diffusion Transformers with Gaussian Process Rectified Feature Cache](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.05981/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Diffusion models have emerged as a promising approach for generating high-quality, high-dimensional images. Nevertheless, these models are hindered by their high computational cost and slow inference, partly due to the quadratic computational complexity of the self-attention mechanisms with respect to input size. Various approaches have been proposed to address this drawback. One such approach focuses on reducing the number of tokens fed into the self-attention, known as token merging (ToMe). In our method, which is called cached adaptive token merging(CA-ToMe), we calculate the similarity between tokens and then merge the r proportion of the most similar tokens. However, due to the repetitive patterns observed in adjacent steps and the variation in the frequency of similarities, we aim to enhance this approach by implementing an adaptive threshold for merging tokens and adding a caching mechanism that stores similar pairs across several adjacent steps. Empirical results demonstrate that our method operates as a training-free acceleration method, achieving a speedup factor of 1.24 in the denoising process while maintaining the same FID scores compared to existing approaches.