# From Structure to Detail: Hierarchical Distillation for Efficient Diffusion Model

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.08930 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.08930/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Diffusion foundations and sampling, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 28 of its 46 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 Nov 2025.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Diffusion foundations and sampling](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/diffusion-foundations-and-sampling/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 28 of 28)

- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13456/) (2020)
- [Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09748/) (2022)
- [SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.01952/) (2023)
- [Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03206/) (2024)
- [Flow Straight and Fast: Learning to Generate and Transfer Data with Rectified Flow](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.03003/) (2022)
- [Consistency Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.01469/) (2023)
- [Spectral Normalization for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.05957/) (2018)
- [Building Normalizing Flows with Stochastic Interpolants](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.15571/) (2022)
- [Latent Consistency Models: Synthesizing High-Resolution Images with Few-Step Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.04378/) (2023)
- [SiT: Exploring Flow and Diffusion-based Generative Models with Scalable Interpolant Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.08740/) (2024)
- [On Distillation of Guided Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03142/) (2022)
- [Autoregressive Image Generation without Vector Quantization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.11838/) (2024)
- [Mean Flows for One-step Generative Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.13447/) (2025)
- [Consistency Trajectory Models: Learning Probability Flow ODE Trajectory of Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.02279/) (2023)
- [One Step Diffusion via Shortcut Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.12557/) (2024)
- [SDXL-Lightning: Progressive Adversarial Diffusion Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.13929/) (2024)
- [GANs Trained by a Two Time-Scale Update Rule Converge to a Local Nash Equilibrium](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.08500/) (2017)
- [SANA 1.5: Efficient Scaling of Training-Time and Inference-Time Compute in Linear Diffusion Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.18427/) (2025)
- [SANA-Sprint: One-Step Diffusion with Continuous-Time Consistency Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.09641/) (2025)
- [Progressive Distillation for Fast Sampling of Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.00512/) (2022)
- [Learning Few-Step Diffusion Models by Trajectory Distribution Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.06674/) (2025)
- [One-step Diffusion Models with f-Divergence Distribution Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.15681/) (2025)
- [Adversarial Distribution Matching for Diffusion Distillation Towards Efficient Image and Video Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.18569/) (2025)
- [MagicDistillation: Weak-to-Strong Video Distillation for Large-Scale Few-Step Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.13319/) (2025)
- [FACM: Flow-Anchored Consistency Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.03738/) (2025)
- [AccVideo: Accelerating Video Diffusion Model with Synthetic Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.19462/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Kling-Omni Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.16776/) (2025)
- [CrossDistill: Balancing Quality and Diversity via Trajectory-Level Hybrid Few-Step Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.14725/) (2026)
- [Two Halves are More than One: Phase-wise Velocity Distillation for Fast and High-Quality Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.08070/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The inference latency of diffusion models remains a critical barrier to their real-time application. While trajectory-based and distribution-based step distillation methods offer solutions, they present a fundamental trade-off. Trajectory-based methods preserve global structure but act as a "lossy compressor", sacrificing high-frequency details. Conversely, distribution-based methods can achieve higher fidelity but often suffer from mode collapse and unstable training. This paper recasts them from independent paradigms into synergistic components within our novel Hierarchical Distillation (HD) framework. We leverage trajectory distillation not as a final generator, but to establish a structural ``sketch", providing a near-optimal initialization for the subsequent distribution-based refinement stage. This strategy yields an ideal initial distribution that enhances the ceiling of overall performance. To further improve quality, we introduce and refine the adversarial training process. We find standard discriminator structures are ineffective at refining an already high-quality generator. To overcome this, we introduce the Adaptive Weighted Discriminator (AWD), tailored for the HD pipeline. By dynamically allocating token weights, AWD focuses on local imperfections, enabling efficient detail refinement. Our approach demonstrates state-of-the-art performance across diverse tasks. On ImageNet 256×256, our single-step model achieves an FID of 2.26, rivaling its 250-step teacher. It also achieves promising results on the high-resolution text-to-image MJHQ benchmark, proving its generalizability. Our method establishes a robust new paradigm for high-fidelity, single-step diffusion models.