mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

LESA: Learnable Stage-Aware Predictors for Diffusion Model Acceleration

arXiv 2602.20497 ↗First posted 24 Feb 2026cs.CV cs.AIcited by 4

On the map: Diffusion models → Diffusion foundations and sampling

Abstract (arXiv)

Diffusion models have achieved remarkable success in image and video generation tasks. However, the high computational demands of Diffusion Transformers (DiTs) pose a significant challenge to their practical deployment. While feature caching is a promising acceleration strategy, existing methods based on simple reusing or training-free forecasting struggle to adapt to the complex, stage-dependent dynamics of the diffusion process, often resulting in quality degradation and failing to maintain consistency with the standard denoising process. To address this, we propose a LEarnable Stage-Aware (LESA) predictor framework based on two-stage training. Our approach leverages a Kolmogorov-Arnold Network (KAN) to accurately learn temporal feature mappings from data. We further introduce a multi-stage, multi-expert architecture that assigns specialized predictors to different noise-level stages, enabling more precise and robust feature forecasting. Extensive experiments show our method achieves significant acceleration while maintaining high-fidelity generation. Experiments demonstrate 5.00x acceleration on FLUX.1-dev with minimal quality degradation (1.0% drop), 6.25x speedup on Qwen-Image with a 20.2% quality improvement over the previous SOTA (TaylorSeer), and 5.00x acceleration on HunyuanVideo with a 24.7% PSNR improvement over TaylorSeer. State-of-the-art performance on both text-to-image and text-to-video synthesis validates the effectiveness and generalization capability of our training-based framework across different models. Our code is available at https://github.com/caipeiliang2004/LESA.

Key facts. Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Diffusion foundations and sampling, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 37 of its 48 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 24 Feb 2026.

Builds on

37 of 48 references.

Closest ancestors · 20

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025A Survey on Cache Methods in Diffusion Models: Toward Efficient Multi-Modal Generation22 Oct
  2. 2025FreqCa: Accelerating Diffusion Models via Frequency-Aware Caching9 Oct
  3. 2025SpeCa: Accelerating Diffusion Transformers with Speculative Feature Caching15 Sep
  4. 2025Compute Only 16 Tokens in One Timestep: Accelerating Diffusion Transformers with Cluster-Driven Feature Caching12 Sep
  5. 2025Forecast then Calibrate: Feature Caching as ODE for Efficient Diffusion Transformers22 Aug
  6. 2025From Reusing to Forecasting: Accelerating Diffusion Models with TaylorSeers10 Mar
  7. 2025Cached Adaptive Token Merging: Dynamic Token Reduction and Redundant Computation Elimination in Diffusion Model1 Jan
  8. 2024Token Pruning for Caching Better: 9 Times Acceleration on Stable Diffusion for Free31 Dec
  9. 2024DiP-GO: A Diffusion Pruner via Few-step Gradient Optimization22 Oct
  10. 2024Accelerating Diffusion Transformers with Token-wise Feature Caching5 Oct
  11. 2024FORA: Fast-Forward Caching in Diffusion Transformer Acceleration1 Jul
  12. 2024Learning-to-Cache: Accelerating Diffusion Transformer via Layer Caching3 Jun
8 more
  1. 2024Delta-DiT: A Training-Free Acceleration Method Tailored for Diffusion Transformers3 Jun
  2. 2023DeepCache: Accelerating Diffusion Models for Free1 Dec
  3. 2023Structural Pruning for Diffusion Models18 May
  4. 2023Consistency Models2 Mar
  5. 2022DPM-Solver++: Fast Solver for Guided Sampling of Diffusion Probabilistic Models2 Nov
  6. 2022DPM-Solver: A Fast ODE Solver for Diffusion Probabilistic Model Sampling in Around 10 Steps2 Jun
  7. 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models6 Oct
  8. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models19 Jun

Other references · 17

  1. 2015U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentationcited by 19,604
  2. 2018The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metriccited by 11,029
  3. 2022Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understandingcited by 6,322
  4. 2022Flow Straight and Fast: Learning to Generate and Transfer Data with Rectified Flowcited by 3,550
  5. 2025Wan: Open and Advanced Large-Scale Video Generative Modelscited by 2,536
  6. 2023Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasetscited by 2,526
  7. 2021CLIPScore: A Reference-free Evaluation Metric for Image Captioningcited by 2,388
  8. 2024CogVideoX: Text-to-Video Diffusion Models with An Expert Transformercited by 2,198
  9. 2024HunyuanVideo: A Systematic Framework For Large Video Generative Modelscited by 1,597
  10. 2025Qwen-Image Technical Reportcited by 973
  11. 2024Hunyuan-DiT: A Powerful Multi-Resolution Diffusion Transformer with Fine-Grained Chinese Understandingcited by 294
  12. 2024Timestep Embedding Tells: It's Time to Cache for Video Diffusion Modelcited by 245
5 more
  1. 2024DiTFastAttn: Attention Compression for Diffusion Transformer Modelscited by 109
  2. 2024Adaptive Caching for Faster Video Generation with Diffusion Transformerscited by 100
  3. 2024Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks (KANs) for Time Series Analysiscited by 97
  4. 2024PeRFlow: Piecewise Rectified Flow as Universal Plug-and-Play Acceleratorcited by 95
  5. 2024A Temporal Kolmogorov-Arnold Transformer for Time Series Forecastingcited by 50

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 4.

4 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026Predict to Skip: Linear Multistep Feature Forecasting for Efficient Diffusion Transformers
  2. 2026Beyond Fixed Formulas: Data-Driven Linear Predictor for Efficient Diffusion Models
  3. 2026Adaptive Spectral Feature Forecasting for Diffusion Sampling Acceleration
  4. 2024HarmoniCa: Harmonizing Training and Inference for Better Feature Caching in Diffusion Transformer Acceleration
  5. 2026Forecast the Principal, Stabilize the Residual: Subspace-Aware Feature Caching for Efficient Diffusion Transformers
  6. 2025ProCache: Constraint-Aware Feature Caching with Selective Computation for Diffusion Transformer Acceleration
  7. 2026Koopman Observers for Diffusion Acceleration: Correcting Feature Forecasts with Shallow Measurements
  8. 2026DiffSparse: Accelerating Diffusion Transformers with Learned Token Sparsity