AI Tech Publishing
Apr 5, 2026 · Artificial Intelligence
Why the First Token Is Slow: A Deep Dive into KV Cache for LLM Inference
The article explains how KV cache eliminates redundant computations in autoregressive LLM generation, detailing the attention mechanism, the O(n²) waste of recomputing K and V, the cache‑based solution, its impact on time‑to‑first‑token, and the memory‑vs‑speed trade‑off.
Inference OptimizationKV cacheLLM
0 likes · 7 min read