Towards Efficient Large Vision-Language Models: A Comprehensive Survey on Inference Strategies
On the map: LLM reasoning → Multimodal reasoning
Abstract (arXiv)
Although Large Vision Language Models (LVLMs) have demonstrated impressive multimodal reasoning capabilities, their scalability and deployment are constrained by massive computational requirements. In particular, the massive amount of visual tokens from high-resolution input data aggravates the situation due to the quadratic complexity of attention mechanisms. To address these issues, the research community has developed several optimization frameworks. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of the current state-of-the-art techniques for accelerating LVLM inference. We introduce a systematic taxonomy that categorizes existing optimization frameworks into four primary dimensions: visual token compression, memory management and serving, efficient architectural design, and advanced decoding strategies. Furthermore, we critically examine the limitations of these current methodologies and identify critical open problems to inspire future research directions in efficient multimodal systems.
Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Multimodal reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 73 of its 80 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 30 Mar 2026.
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