Ruixiao Li
Author directory2026
Beyond Homogeneous Attention: Memory-Efficient LLMs via Fourier-Approximated KV Cache
Qiqi Wang | Siyang He | Xiaoran Liu | Ruixiao Li | Yuerong Song | Zhigeng Liu | Mianqiu Huang | Zengfeng Huang | Qipeng Guo | Ziwei He | Xipeng Qiu
Proceedings of the 2026 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing
Qiqi Wang | Siyang He | Xiaoran Liu | Ruixiao Li | Yuerong Song | Zhigeng Liu | Mianqiu Huang | Zengfeng Huang | Qipeng Guo | Ziwei He | Xipeng Qiu
Proceedings of the 2026 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing
Large Language Models struggle with memory demands from the growing Key-Value (KV) cache as context lengths increase. Existing compression methods homogenize head dimensions or rely on attention-guided token pruning, often sacrificing accuracy or introducing computational overhead. We propose FourierAttention, a training-free framework that exploits the heterogeneous roles of transformer head dimensions: lower dimensions prioritize local context, while upper ones capture long-range dependencies. By projecting the long-context-insensitive dimensions onto orthogonal Fourier bases, FourierAttention approximates their temporal evolution with fixed-length spectral coefficients. Evaluations on Llama and Qwen models show FourierAttention achieves the best long-context accuracy on LongBench and Needle-In-A-Haystack (NIAH). Besides, a custom Triton kernel, FlashFourierAttention, is designed to optimize memory via streamlined read-write operations, enabling efficient deployment without performance compromise.