How KV Caching Delivers 5x Faster LLM Inference: A Technical Breakdown

Deep Dive: How KV Caching Makes LLM Inference 5x Faster Every time you interact with ChatGPT, Claude, or any similar large language model (LLM), you likely notice a distinct pattern. The very first token—the initial fragment of the response—takes a noticeable moment to appear on your screen. However, once that first piece arrives, the rest of the text streams out almost instantly. This behavior is neither a user interface glitch nor a network delay. It is the result of a deliberate and critical engineering decision known as KV Caching (Key-Value Caching). This technique is fundamental to modern LLM infrastructure, capable …