# MambaIC: State Space Models for High-Performance Learned Image Compression

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.12461 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.12461/

## Key facts

- Cited by 20 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 36 of its 49 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Mar 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 36)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [EfficientNet: Rethinking Model Scaling for Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.11946/) (2019)
- [Mamba: Linear-Time Sequence Modeling with Selective State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00752/) (2023)
- [Efficiently Modeling Long Sequences with Structured State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.00396/) (2021)
- [Transformers are SSMs: Generalized Models and Efficient Algorithms Through Structured State Space Duality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.21060/) (2024)
- [Vision Mamba: Efficient Visual Representation Learning with Bidirectional State Space Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.09417/) (2024)
- [VMamba: Visual State Space Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.10166/) (2024)
- [Variational image compression with a scale hyperprior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.01436/) (2018)
- [RWKV: Reinventing RNNs for the Transformer Era](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.13048/) (2023)
- [Simplified State Space Layers for Sequence Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.04933/) (2022)
- [End-to-end Optimized Image Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.01704/) (2016)
- [Joint Autoregressive and Hierarchical Priors for Learned Image Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.02736/) (2018)
- [Combining Recurrent, Convolutional, and Continuous-time Models with Linear State-Space Layers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.13985/) (2021)
- [Learned Image Compression with Discretized Gaussian Mixture Likelihoods and Attention Modules](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.01568/) (2020)
- [Hungry Hungry Hippos: Towards Language Modeling with State Space Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.14052/) (2022)
- [Learning to (Learn at Test Time): RNNs with Expressive Hidden States](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.04620/) (2024)
- [ELIC: Efficient Learned Image Compression with Unevenly Grouped Space-Channel Contextual Adaptive Coding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.10886/) (2022)
- [Long Range Language Modeling via Gated State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.13947/) (2022)
- [Channel-wise Autoregressive Entropy Models for Learned Image Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.08739/) (2020)
- [LocalMamba: Visual State Space Model with Windowed Selective Scan](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.09338/) (2024)
- [MambaVision: A Hybrid Mamba-Transformer Vision Backbone](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.08083/) (2024)
- [Learned Image Compression with Mixed Transformer-CNN Architectures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.14978/) (2023)
- [Checkerboard Context Model for Efficient Learned Image Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.15306/) (2021)
- [The Devil Is in the Details: Window-based Attention for Image Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.08450/) (2022)
- [Entroformer: A Transformer-based Entropy Model for Learned Image Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.05492/) (2022)
- [VmambaIR: Visual State Space Model for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.11423/) (2024)
- [Transformer-based Image Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.06707/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 20 of 20)

- [Content-Aware Mamba for Learned Image Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.02192/) (2025)
- [Data Efficient Any Transformer-to-Mamba Distillation via Attention Bridge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.19266/) (2025)
- [Diff-ICMH: Harmonizing Machine and Human Vision in Image Compression with Generative Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.22549/) (2025)
- [Next-Frame Decoding for Ultra-Low-Bitrate Image Compression with Video Diffusion Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.15129/) (2026)
- [Leveraging Second-Order Curvature for Efficient Learned Image Compression: Theory and Empirical Evidence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.20769/) (2026)
- [Progressive Learned Image Compression for Machine Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.20070/) (2025)
- [Uni-LVC: A Unified Method for Intra- and Inter-Mode Learned Video Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.05756/) (2026)
- [Adaptive Learned Image Compression with Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.25316/) (2026)
- [Exploiting Semantic and Pixel Representations for Ultra-Low Bitrate Image Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.01608/) (2026)
- [FaSDiff: Balancing Perception and Semantics in Face Compression via Stable Diffusion Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.05870/) (2025)
- [ReactionMamba: Generating Short & Long Human Reaction Sequences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.00208/) (2025)
- [Joint Multi-scale Gated Transformer and Prior-guided Convolutional Network for Learned Image Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.00744/) (2025)
- [Benchmarking and Enhancing VLM for Compressed Image Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.20901/) (2025)
- [Understanding Rate-Distortion Performance in Distributed Transformer Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.22002/) (2026)
- [HiDE: Hierarchical Dictionary-Based Entropy Modeling for Learned Image Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.06766/) (2026)
- [What and Where to Adapt: Structure-Semantics Co-Tuning for Machine Vision Compression via Synergistic Adapters](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.10017/) (2026)
- [MambaRaw: Selective State Space Modeling for Efficient 4K Raw Image Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.24479/) (2026)
- [Hadamard-Domain Model Quantization for Learned Image Coding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.01653/) (2026)
- [Visual Token Codec: Unleashing Spatial Redundancy for ViT Feature Coding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.08832/) (2026)
- [Recasting DiT for Extreme Image Compression with Hierarchical Visual Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.18607/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

A high-performance image compression algorithm is crucial for real-time information transmission across numerous fields. Despite rapid progress in image compression, computational inefficiency and poor redundancy modeling still pose significant bottlenecks, limiting practical applications. Inspired by the effectiveness of state space models (SSMs) in capturing long-range dependencies, we leverage SSMs to address computational inefficiency in existing methods and improve image compression from multiple perspectives. In this paper, we integrate the advantages of SSMs for better efficiency-performance trade-off and propose an enhanced image compression approach through refined context modeling, which we term MambaIC. Specifically, we explore context modeling to adaptively refine the representation of hidden states. Additionally, we introduce window-based local attention into channel-spatial entropy modeling to reduce potential spatial redundancy during compression, thereby increasing efficiency. Comprehensive qualitative and quantitative results validate the effectiveness and efficiency of our approach, particularly for high-resolution image compression. Code is released at https://github.com/AuroraZengfh/MambaIC.