# Adaptive Overclocking: Dynamic Control of Thinking Path Length via Real-Time Reasoning Signals

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.17000 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.17000/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Test-time compute and efficient thinking, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 19 of its 24 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 21 Sep 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Test-time compute and efficient thinking](https://mlsanity.com/lr/test-time-compute-and-efficient-thinking/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 19 of 19)

- [Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.11903/) (2022)
- [Training Verifiers to Solve Math Word Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.14168/) (2021)
- [Qwen3 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.09388/) (2025)
- [DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.12948/) (2025)
- [Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Reasoners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11916/) (2022)
- [Let's Verify Step by Step](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.20050/) (2023)
- [Are NLP Models really able to Solve Simple Math Word Problems?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.07191/) (2021)
- [Do NOT Think That Much for 2+3=? On the Overthinking of o1-Like LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.21187/) (2024)
- [Stop Overthinking: A Survey on Efficient Reasoning for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.16419/) (2025)
- [L1: Controlling How Long A Reasoning Model Thinks With Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.04697/) (2025)
- [Training Language Models to Reason Efficiently](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.04463/) (2025)
- [When More is Less: Understanding Chain-of-Thought Length in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.07266/) (2025)
- [Thoughts Are All Over the Place: On the Underthinking of o1-Like LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.18585/) (2025)
- [The Impact of Reasoning Step Length on Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.04925/) (2024)
- [The Danger of Overthinking: Examining the Reasoning-Action Dilemma in Agentic Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.08235/) (2025)
- [Between Underthinking and Overthinking: An Empirical Study of Reasoning Length and correctness in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.00127/) (2025)
- [Escape Sky-high Cost: Early-stopping Self-Consistency for Multi-step Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.10480/) (2024)
- [Effectively Controlling Reasoning Models through Thinking Intervention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.24370/) (2025)
- [Overclocking LLM Reasoning: Monitoring and Controlling Thinking Path Lengths in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.07240/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Dynamic Model Routing and Cascading for Efficient LLM Inference: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.04445/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Large Reasoning Models (LRMs) often suffer from computational inefficiency due to overthinking, where a fixed reasoning budget fails to match the varying complexity of tasks. To address this issue, we propose Adaptive Overclocking, a method that makes the overclocking hyperparameter α dynamic and context-aware. Our method adjusts reasoning speed in real time through two complementary signals: (1) token-level model uncertainty for fine-grained step-wise control, and (2) input complexity estimation for informed initialization. We implement this approach with three strategies: Uncertainty-Aware Alpha Scheduling (UA-αS), Complexity-Guided Alpha Initialization (CG-αI), and a Hybrid Adaptive Control (HAC) that combines both. Experiments on GSM8K, MATH, and SVAMP show that HAC achieves superior accuracy-latency trade-offs, reducing unnecessary computation on simple problems while allocating more resources to challenging ones. By mitigating overthinking, Adaptive Overclocking enhances both efficiency and overall reasoning performance.