Kunlun: Establishing Scaling Laws for Massive-Scale Recommendation Systems through Unified Architecture Design
Not on the map. Why?
Abstract (arXiv)
Deriving predictable scaling laws that govern the relationship between model performance and computational investment is crucial for designing and allocating resources in massive-scale recommendation systems. While such laws are established for large language models, they remain challenging for recommendation systems, especially those processing both user history and context features. We identify poor scaling efficiency as the main barrier to predictable power-law scaling, stemming from inefficient modules with low Model FLOPs Utilization (MFU) and suboptimal resource allocation. We introduce Kunlun, a scalable architecture that systematically improves model efficiency and resource allocation. Our low-level optimizations include Generalized Dot-Product Attention (GDPA), Hierarchical Seed Pooling (HSP), and Sliding Window Attention. Our high-level innovations feature Computation Skip (CompSkip) and Event-level Personalization. These advances increase MFU from 17% to 37% on NVIDIA B200 GPUs and double scaling efficiency over state-of-the-art methods. Kunlun is now deployed in major Meta Ads models, delivering significant production impact.
Key facts. Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 25 of its 30 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 10 Feb 2026.
Builds on
25 of 30 references.
References · 25
- 2017Attention Is All You Needcited by 59,932
- 2020Language Models are Few-Shot Learnerscited by 32,199
- 2020Scaling Laws for Neural Language Modelscited by 6,411
- 2022PaLM: Scaling Language Modeling with Pathwayscited by 5,304
- 2021RoFormer: Enhanced Transformer with Rotary Position Embeddingcited by 4,581
- 2022FlashAttention: Fast and Memory-Efficient Exact Attention with IO-Awarenesscited by 3,611
- 2022Training Compute-Optimal Large Language Modelscited by 2,927
- 2024Gemma 2: Improving Open Language Models at a Practical Sizecited by 1,928
- 2017Mixed Precision Trainingcited by 1,135
- 2016Wide & Deep Learning for Recommender Systemscited by 745
- 2017DeepFM: A Factorization-Machine based Neural Network for CTR Predictioncited by 673
- 2017Deep Interest Network for Click-Through Rate Predictioncited by 541
13 more
- 2024FlashAttention-3: Fast and Accurate Attention with Asynchrony and Low-precisioncited by 507
- 2024ShortGPT: Layers in Large Language Models are More Redundant Than You Expectcited by 369
- 2018Deep Interest Evolution Network for Click-Through Rate Predictioncited by 336
- 2020DCN V2: Improved Deep & Cross Network and Practical Lessons for Web-scale Learning to Rank Systemscited by 326
- 2018xDeepFM: Combining Explicit and Implicit Feature Interactions for Recommender Systemscited by 277
- 2024Actions Speak Louder than Words: Trillion-Parameter Sequential Transducers for Generative Recommendationscited by 184
- 2024Wukong: Towards a Scaling Law for Large-Scale Recommendationcited by 72
- 2025MTGR: Industrial-Scale Generative Recommendation Framework in Meituancited by 47
- 2025LONGER: Scaling Up Long Sequence Modeling in Industrial Recommenderscited by 46
- 2025RankMixer: Scaling Up Ranking Models in Industrial Recommenderscited by 41
- 2025OneTrans: Unified Feature Interaction and Sequence Modeling with One Transformer in Industrial Recommendercited by 34
- 2024InterFormer: Effective Heterogeneous Interaction Learning for Click-Through Rate Predictioncited by 8
- 2025Climber: Toward Efficient Scaling Laws for Large Recommendation Modelscited by 8
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2026: 8.
8 papers.
- 2026UniMixer: A Unified Architecture for Scaling Laws in Recommendation Systemscited by 7
- 2026UniDot: A Unified Network for Sequence Modeling and Feature Interaction in Large-scale Recommendationcited by 1
- 2026LoopFM: Learning frOm HistOrical RePresentations of Foundation Model for Recommendationcited by 0
- 2026WHALE: A Scalable Unified Model for Recommendation with Wukong-HSTU Architecturecited by 0
- 2026Bumblebee: Interleaved Mixed-Layer Building Blocks for Large-Scale Recommendation Systemscited by 0
- 2026ClockRoPE: Random Fourier Rotations for Temporal Routine Modelingcited by 0
- 2026ROCS: Request-Oriented Compute Sharing for Efficient Large-Scale Recommendationcited by 0
- 2026SAGA: Structure-Attended Generative Action Embedding Model that encodes Multi-Surface User Action Sequencescited by 0
- 2026UniDot: A Unified Network for Sequence Modeling and Feature Interaction in Large-scale Recommendation17 Aug 2026
- 2026SAGA: Structure-Attended Generative Action Embedding Model that encodes Multi-Surface User Action Sequences15 Aug 2026
- 2026ROCS: Request-Oriented Compute Sharing for Efficient Large-Scale Recommendation30 Jul 2026
- 2026ClockRoPE: Random Fourier Rotations for Temporal Routine Modeling29 Jul 2026
- 2026WHALE: A Scalable Unified Model for Recommendation with Wukong-HSTU Architecture19 Jul 2026
- 2026Bumblebee: Interleaved Mixed-Layer Building Blocks for Large-Scale Recommendation Systems6 Jul 2026
- 2026LoopFM: Learning frOm HistOrical RePresentations of Foundation Model for Recommendation28 May 2026
- 2026UniMixer: A Unified Architecture for Scaling Laws in Recommendation Systems1 Apr 2026