by z-lab
Open source · 96k downloads · 22 likes
The Qwen3 4B DFlash b16 model is a specialized component designed to accelerate the inference of large language models. It employs an innovative *speculative decoding* approach based on a lightweight block-based diffusion model, enabling parallel text proposal generation to optimize response speed. Paired with the target Qwen3-4B model, it significantly enhances performance without compromising response quality, delivering efficiency gains of up to six times faster than traditional methods. Ideal for applications requiring reduced response times, such as interactive chatbots, real-time AI assistants, or automated text processing systems, this model stands out for its architecture optimized for speed while maintaining high textual coherence. Its block-based diffusion approach makes it particularly well-suited for environments where latency is critical.
DFlash is a novel speculative decoding method that utilizes a lightweight block diffusion model for drafting. It enables efficient, high-quality parallel drafting that pushes the limits of inference speed.
This model is the drafter component. It must be used in conjunction with the target model Qwen/Qwen3-4B.
uv pip install "git+https://github.com/sgl-project/sglang.git@refs/pull/20547/head#subdirectory=python"
# Optional: enable schedule overlapping (experimental, may not be stable)
# export SGLANG_ENABLE_SPEC_V2=1
# export SGLANG_ENABLE_DFLASH_SPEC_V2=1
# export SGLANG_ENABLE_OVERLAP_PLAN_STREAM=1
python -m sglang.launch_server \
--model-path Qwen/Qwen3-4B \
--speculative-algorithm DFLASH \
--speculative-draft-model-path z-lab/Qwen3-4B-DFlash-b16 \
--tp-size 1 \
--dtype bfloat16 \
--attention-backend fa3 \
--mem-fraction-static 0.75 \
--trust-remote-code
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(base_url="http://localhost:30000/v1", api_key="EMPTY")
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model="Qwen/Qwen3-4B",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Write a quicksort in Python."}],
max_tokens=2048,
temperature=0.0,
extra_body={
"chat_template_kwargs": {"enable_thinking": False},
},
)
print(response.choices[0].message.content)
uv pip install vllm
uv pip install -U vllm --torch-backend=auto --extra-index-url https://wheels.vllm.ai/nightly
vllm serve Qwen/Qwen3-4B \
--speculative-config '{"method": "dflash", "model": "z-lab/Qwen3-4B-DFlash-b16", "num_speculative_tokens": 15}' \
--attention-backend flash_attn \
--max-num-batched-tokens 32768
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(base_url="http://localhost:8000/v1", api_key="EMPTY")
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model="Qwen/Qwen3-4B",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Write a quicksort in Python."}],
max_tokens=2048,
temperature=0.0,
chat_template_kwargs: {"enable_thinking": False},
)
print(response.choices[0].message.content)
This model requires trust_remote_code=True to load the custom architecture for block diffusion generation.
Ensure you have transformers and torch installed. Our evaluation is conducted with torch==2.9.0 and transformers=4.57.3.
pip install transformers==4.57.3 torch==2.9.1 accelerate
The following example demonstrates how to load the DFlash drafter and the Qwen3-8B target model to perform speculative decoding.
from transformers import AutoModel, AutoModelForCausalLM, AutoTokenizer
# 1. Load the DFlash Draft Model
# Note: trust_remote_code=True is required for DFlash. We recommend run on one GPU currently.
model = AutoModel.from_pretrained(
"z-lab/Qwen3-4B-DFlash-b16",
trust_remote_code=True,
dtype="auto",
device_map="cuda:0"
).eval()
# 2. Load the Target Model
target = AutoModelForCausalLM.from_pretrained(
"Qwen/Qwen3-4B",
dtype="auto",
device_map="cuda:0"
).eval()
# 3. Load Tokenizer and Prepare Input
tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained("Qwen/Qwen3-4B")
prompt = "How many positive whole-number divisors does 196 have?"
messages = [
{"role": "user", "content": prompt}
]
# Note: this draft model is used for thinking mode disabled
text = tokenizer.apply_chat_template(
messages,
tokenize=False,
add_generation_prompt=True,
enable_thinking=False
)
model_inputs = tokenizer([text], return_tensors="pt").to(model.device)
# 4. Run Speculative Decoding
# The 'spec_generate' function is a custom method provided by the DFlash model
generate_ids = model.spec_generate(
input_ids=model_inputs["input_ids"],
max_new_tokens=2048,
temperature=0.0,
target=target,
stop_token_ids=[tokenizer.eos_token_id]
)
print(tokenizer.decode(generate_ids[0], skip_special_tokens=True))
DFlash achieves up to 6.17x lossless acceleration for Qwen3-8B, making it nearly 2.5x faster than the state-of-the-art speculative decoding method EAGLE-3. Check out our GitHub repository to see how to reproduce the results.
If you find DFlash useful for your research or applications, please cite our project.
@misc{chen2026dflash,
title = {DFlash: Block Diffusion for Flash Speculative Decoding},
author = {Chen, Jian and Liang, Yesheng and Liu, Zhijian},
year = {2026},
eprint = {2602.06036},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
primaryClass = {cs.CL},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.06036}
}