Cited by 308Parallel Computing and Optimization TechniquesCloud Computing and Resource ManagementDistributed and Parallel Computing Systems

Splitwise: Efficient Generative LLM Inference Using Phase Splitting

Patel, Pratyush, Choukse, Esha, Zhang, Chaojie, Shah, Aashaka, Goiri, Íñigo, Maleki, Saeed, Bianchini, Ricardo·2024·2024 ACM/IEEE 51st Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA)

Abstract

Generative large language model (LLM) applications are growing rapidly, leading to large-scale deployments of expensive and power-hungry GPUs. Our characterization of LLM inference shows that each inference request undergoes two phases: a compute-intensive prompt computation phase and a memory intensive token generation phase, each with distinct latency, throughput, memory, and power characteristics. Despite state-of-the-art batching and scheduling, the token generation phase underutilizes compute resources. Unlike prompt computation, token generation does not need the compute capability of the latest GPUs and can be run with lower power and cost. Based on these insights, we propose Splitwise, a model deployment and scheduling technique that splits the two phases of LLM inference requests on to separate machines. Splitwise enables phase-specific resource management using hardware that is well suited for each phase. Request state is transferred efficiently between machines using optimized network libraries on the fast back-plane interconnects available in today’s GPU clusters. Using Splitwise, we design homogeneous and heterogeneous LLM inference clusters optimized for throughput, cost, and power Compared to current designs, Splitwise clusters achieve up to $1.4 \times$ higher throughput at $\mathbf{2 0 \%}$ lower cost. Alternatively, they can deliver $2.35 \times$ more throughput under the same power and cost budgets.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1109/isca59077.2024.00019

Cites

57 of 57 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

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Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

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This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Llumnix migrates requests to repair imbalance; DistServe and Splitwise separate prefill and decode placement.

    “Llumnix migrates requests to repair imbalance [Sun et al.(2024)]; DistServe and Splitwise separate prefill and decode placement [Zhong et al.(2024), Patel et al.(2024)].”

    From CacheRoute: Planned Prefix-Affinity Routing for Large-Scale LLM Serving (2026) · cites this paper as Patel et al.(2024)

  • Separating prefill and decoding to different GPUs avoids prefill-decoding interference.

    “The second approach is to separate prefill and decoding to different GPUs to avoid prefilldecoding interference Patel et al. (2024); Zhong et al. (2024).”

    From Preble: Efficient Distributed Prompt Scheduling for LLM Serving (2024) · cites this paper as Patel et al. (2024)

  • Several recent works have targeted LLM usages with long prompts and proposed solutions to solve the imbalance problem.

    “Several recent works have targeted LLM usages with long prompts and proposed solutions to solve the imbalance problem Agrawal et al. (2023; 2024); Zhong et al. (2024); Patel et al. (2024).”

    From Preble: Efficient Distributed Prompt Scheduling for LLM Serving (2024) · cites this paper as Patel et al. (2024)

  • Redundant prefill computation and duplicated KV caches increase aggregate prefill load and worsen tail latency by intensifying prefill-decode interference in existing LLM serving stacks.

    “increasing aggregate prefill load and worsening tail latency by intensifying prefill-decode interference in existing LLM serving stacks.”
  • Disaggregated serving reduces prefill-decode interference by placing prefill and decode on separate GPUs.

    “Disaggregated serving reduces such interference by placing prefill and decode on separate GPUs”

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

2 of the 59 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 29

  1. Add Splitwise Implementation to vLLM, GitHub.
  2. AMD Instinct™ MI250 Accelerator
  3. Azure InfiniBand HPC VMs
  4. 2023, Azure Public Dataset: Azure LLM Inference Trace
  5. CoreWeave - Specialized Cloud Provider
  6. Google Assistant with Bard
  7. HPC Interconnect on CoreWeave Cloud
  8. Intel BigDL-LLM
  9. Intel Sapphire Rapids with HBM.
  10. Microsoft Azure ND A100 v4-series
  11. MSCCL++: A GPU-driven communication stack for scalable AI applications
  12. Numenta Inference on CPUs
  13. NVIDIA Accelerated InfiniBand Solutions.
  14. NVIDIA Chip Shortage
  15. NVIDIA DGX A100: Universal System for AI Infrastructure.
  16. NVIDIA DGX H100
  17. NVIDIA Hopper GPUs Expand Reach as Demand for AI Grows
  18. OpenAI ChatGPT APIs
  19. Power Availability Stymies Datacenter Growth
  20. SplitwiseSim: LLM Serving Cluster Simulator
  21. The New Bing.
  22. TurboMind Inference Server
  23. Patterson, Domain Specific Architectures for Deep Neural Networks: Three Generations of Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), Allen School Distinguished Lecture
  24. Meta. Introducing the AI Research SuperCluster - Meta’s CuttingEdge AI Supercomputer for AI Research
  25. Radford, 2019, Language Models are Unsupervised Multitask Learners, OpenAI blog
  26. Schmid, Fine-tune FLAN-T5 XL/XXL using DeepSpeed & Hugging Face Transformers
  27. Schmid, Llama 2 is here - Get it on Hugging Face
  28. Yang, 2017, PowerChief Intelligent Power Allocation for Multi-stage Applications to Improve Responsiveness on Power Constrained CMP, in ISCA
  29. Yu, 2022, Orca: A Distributed Serving System for Transformer-Based Generative Models, in OSDI

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Authors
Patel, P., Choukse, E., Zhang, C., Shah, A., Goiri, Í., Maleki, S., & Bianchini, R.
Affiliations
  • University of Washington (US)
  • Microsoft (United States) (US)
Venue
2024 ACM/IEEE 51st Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA)
Publisher
IEEE
Published
2024-06
Pages
118-132
ISSN
1063-6897 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W4401211704
Cited by
298
References
59
Citations by year
2026: 176 · 2025: 108 · 2024: 14
FWCI
90.63
Type
conference paper
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
Proceedings - International Symposium on Computer Architecture/Proceedings (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Hardware and Architecture › Parallel Computing and Optimization Techniques
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Cloud Computing and Resource Management
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Distributed and Parallel Computing Systems
Keywords
large language model inference, phase splitting, token generation, GPU clusters, request scheduling, resource management, power efficiency, cost efficiency, throughput, network libraries

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