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CONF-KV: Confidence-Aware KV Cache Eviction with Mixed-Precision Storage for Long-Horizon LLM

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V1</p>\n","updatedAt":"2026-05-29T21:59:40.014Z","author":{"_id":"63578f828ed056fa1cccb7a4","avatarUrl":"https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/63578f828ed056fa1cccb7a4/WH1M3yyAwl9AcZdnRZqyj.png","fullname":"yubol-bobo","name":"yubol","type":"user","isPro":false,"isHf":false,"isHfAdmin":false,"isMod":false,"isUserFollowing":false}},"numEdits":0,"identifiedLanguage":{"language":"en","probability":0.6558868885040283},"editors":["yubol"],"editorAvatarUrls":["https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/63578f828ed056fa1cccb7a4/WH1M3yyAwl9AcZdnRZqyj.png"],"reactions":[],"isReport":false}},{"id":"6a1a418e4587a78f8e52aeba","author":{"_id":"63d3e0e8ff1384ce6c5dd17d","avatarUrl":"https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/1674830754237-63d3e0e8ff1384ce6c5dd17d.jpeg","fullname":"Librarian Bot (Bot)","name":"librarian-bot","type":"user","isPro":false,"isHf":false,"isHfAdmin":false,"isMod":false,"followerCount":359,"isUserFollowing":false},"createdAt":"2026-05-30T01:46:54.000Z","type":"comment","data":{"edited":false,"hidden":false,"latest":{"raw":"This is an automated message from the [Librarian Bot](https://huggingface.co/librarian-bots). I found the following papers similar to this paper. \n\nThe following papers were recommended by the Semantic Scholar API \n\n* [Not All Tokens Are Worth Caching: Learning Semantic-Aware Eviction for LLM Prefix Caches](https://huggingface.co/papers/2605.18825) (2026)\n* [Make Each Token Count: Towards Improving Long-Context Performance with KV Cache Eviction](https://huggingface.co/papers/2605.09649) (2026)\n* [IndexMem: Learned KV-Cache Eviction with Latent Memory for Long-Context LLM Inference](https://huggingface.co/papers/2605.25475) (2026)\n* [Adaptive Mass-Segmented KV Compression for Long-Context Reasoning](https://huggingface.co/papers/2605.23200) (2026)\n* [NestedKV: Nested Memory Routing for Long-Context KV Cache Compression](https://huggingface.co/papers/2605.26678) (2026)\n* [Moment-KV: Momentum-Based Decode-Time KV Cache Compression for Long Generation](https://huggingface.co/papers/2605.29873) (2026)\n* [ArborKV: Structure-Aware KV Cache Management for Scaling Tree-based LLM Reasoning](https://huggingface.co/papers/2605.22106) (2026)\n\n\n Please give a thumbs up to this comment if you found it helpful!\n\n If you want recommendations for any Paper on Hugging Face checkout [this](https://huggingface.co/spaces/librarian-bots/recommend_similar_papers) Space\n\n You can directly ask Librarian Bot for paper recommendations by tagging it in a comment: `@librarian-bot recommend`","html":"<p>This is an automated message from the <a href=\"https://huggingface.co/librarian-bots\">Librarian Bot</a>. I found the following papers similar to this paper. </p>\n<p>The following papers were recommended by the Semantic Scholar API </p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https://huggingface.co/papers/2605.18825\">Not All Tokens Are Worth Caching: Learning Semantic-Aware Eviction for LLM Prefix Caches</a> (2026)</li>\n<li><a href=\"https://huggingface.co/papers/2605.09649\">Make Each Token Count: Towards Improving Long-Context Performance with KV Cache Eviction</a> (2026)</li>\n<li><a href=\"https://huggingface.co/papers/2605.25475\">IndexMem: Learned KV-Cache Eviction with Latent Memory for Long-Context LLM Inference</a> (2026)</li>\n<li><a href=\"https://huggingface.co/papers/2605.23200\">Adaptive Mass-Segmented KV Compression for Long-Context Reasoning</a> (2026)</li>\n<li><a href=\"https://huggingface.co/papers/2605.26678\">NestedKV: Nested Memory Routing for Long-Context KV Cache Compression</a> (2026)</li>\n<li><a href=\"https://huggingface.co/papers/2605.29873\">Moment-KV: Momentum-Based Decode-Time KV Cache Compression for Long Generation</a> (2026)</li>\n<li><a href=\"https://huggingface.co/papers/2605.22106\">ArborKV: Structure-Aware KV Cache Management for Scaling Tree-based LLM Reasoning</a> (2026)</li>\n</ul>\n<p> Please give a thumbs up to this comment if you found it helpful!</p>\n<p> If you want recommendations for any Paper on Hugging Face checkout <a href=\"https://huggingface.co/spaces/librarian-bots/recommend_similar_papers\">this</a> Space</p>\n<p> You can directly ask Librarian Bot for paper recommendations by tagging it in a comment: <code><span class=\"SVELTE_PARTIAL_HYDRATER contents\" data-target=\"UserMention\" data-props=\"{&quot;user&quot;:&quot;librarian-bot&quot;}\"><span class=\"inline-block\"><span class=\"contents\"><a href=\"/librarian-bot\">@<span class=\"underline\">librarian-bot</span></a></span> </span></span> recommend</code></p>\n","updatedAt":"2026-05-30T01:46:54.247Z","author":{"_id":"63d3e0e8ff1384ce6c5dd17d","avatarUrl":"https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/1674830754237-63d3e0e8ff1384ce6c5dd17d.jpeg","fullname":"Librarian Bot (Bot)","name":"librarian-bot","type":"user","isPro":false,"isHf":false,"isHfAdmin":false,"isMod":false,"followerCount":359,"isUserFollowing":false}},"numEdits":0,"identifiedLanguage":{"language":"en","probability":0.7058971524238586},"editors":["librarian-bot"],"editorAvatarUrls":["https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/1674830754237-63d3e0e8ff1384ce6c5dd17d.jpeg"],"reactions":[],"isReport":false}}],"primaryEmailConfirmed":false,"paper":{"id":"2605.24786","authors":[{"_id":"6a1718d4da9422d403a4220c","name":"Yubo Li","hidden":false},{"_id":"6a1718d4da9422d403a4220d","name":"Yidi Miao","hidden":false}],"publishedAt":"2026-05-24T00:00:00.000Z","submittedOnDailyAt":"2026-05-29T00:00:00.000Z","title":"CONF-KV: Confidence-Aware KV Cache Eviction with Mixed-Precision Storage for Long-Horizon LLM","submittedOnDailyBy":{"_id":"63578f828ed056fa1cccb7a4","avatarUrl":"https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/63578f828ed056fa1cccb7a4/WH1M3yyAwl9AcZdnRZqyj.png","isPro":false,"fullname":"yubol-bobo","user":"yubol","type":"user","name":"yubol"},"summary":"Long-horizon LLM inference turns the key--value (KV) cache into the dominant GPU memory consumer and makes per-token attention increasingly expensive. 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On Needle-in-a-Haystack up to 32K tokens, CONF-KV reaches 91.4% retrieval accuracy versus 53.8% for sliding windows and 80.6% for H2O; on 75 VisualWebArena tasks it retains 95.3% of full-KV success at 2.8 times lower peak memory.","upvotes":2,"discussionId":"6a1718d4da9422d403a4220e","ai_summary":"CONF-KV is a KV-cache management system that dynamically adjusts cache retention based on model uncertainty, improving memory efficiency and performance for long-sequence language model inference.","ai_keywords":["KV cache","attention mechanism","confidence score","cache eviction","attention mass","blockwise online-softmax attention","mixed FP16/INT8 storage","pyramidal per-layer budget"],"organization":{"_id":"691d9a1012cc4d473e1c862f","name":"CarnegieMellonU","fullname":"Carnegie Mellon University","avatar":"https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/68e396f2b5bb631e9b2fac9a/6I146aJvxxlRCEbYFFAeQ.png"}},"canReadDatabase":false,"canManagePapers":false,"canSubmit":false,"hasHfLevelAccess":false,"upvoted":false,"upvoters":[{"_id":"63578f828ed056fa1cccb7a4","avatarUrl":"https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/63578f828ed056fa1cccb7a4/WH1M3yyAwl9AcZdnRZqyj.png","isPro":false,"fullname":"yubol-bobo","user":"yubol","type":"user"},{"_id":"699b2def6632fceef8533ac9","avatarUrl":"/avatars/9383dfdfab2ae75a220116002823e01f.svg","isPro":false,"fullname":"Yidi Miao","user":"ydmiao123","type":"user"}],"acceptLanguages":["en"],"dailyPaperRank":0,"organization":{"_id":"691d9a1012cc4d473e1c862f","name":"CarnegieMellonU","fullname":"Carnegie Mellon University","avatar":"https://cdn-avatars.huggingface.co/v1/production/uploads/68e396f2b5bb631e9b2fac9a/6I146aJvxxlRCEbYFFAeQ.png"},"markdownContentUrl":"https://huggingface.co/buckets/huggingchat/papers-content/resolve/2605/2605.24786.md"}">
Papers
arxiv:2605.24786

CONF-KV: Confidence-Aware KV Cache Eviction with Mixed-Precision Storage for Long-Horizon LLM

Published on May 24
· Submitted by
yubol-bobo
on May 29
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Abstract

CONF-KV is a KV-cache management system that dynamically adjusts cache retention based on model uncertainty, improving memory efficiency and performance for long-sequence language model inference.

AI-generated summary

Long-horizon LLM inference turns the key--value (KV) cache into the dominant GPU memory consumer and makes per-token attention increasingly expensive. Many common eviction policies use static recency windows or historical attention, leaving unused a signal computed on every decoding step: the model's current uncertainty. We introduce CONF-KV, a KV-cache manager that converts the next-token distribution into a scalar confidence score and uses it to choose the per-step cache budget, retaining more context when the model is uncertain and pruning aggressively when it is confident. Within each budget, tokens are ranked by a composite of accumulated attention mass and recency, while a protected recent window preserves local coherence. We combine the policy with blockwise online-softmax attention, mixed FP16/INT8 storage, and a pyramidal per-layer budget variant. Across four model families and generated lengths up to 4K, CONF-KV stays near the footprint of a fixed 512-token sliding window while remaining within 1.5--2.1 perplexity points of full KV. On Needle-in-a-Haystack up to 32K tokens, CONF-KV reaches 91.4% retrieval accuracy versus 53.8% for sliding windows and 80.6% for H2O; on 75 VisualWebArena tasks it retains 95.3% of full-KV success at 2.8 times lower peak memory.

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