MoME: Mixture-of-Memory Embeddings for Context-Aware Sparse Lookup

Hugging Face Daily Papers Papers

Summary

Introduces MoME, a context-aware memory mechanism for LLMs that uses a mixture of slots to handle token polysemy, improving over baselines in pretraining experiments.

Scaling large language models efficiently has motivated sparse capacity mechanisms such as Mixture-of-Experts and, more recently, conditional memory: token-indexed embedding tables that augment the backbone with cheap parametric lookups. Existing memory-embedding methods retrieve via a deterministic function of the surface form, which collapses different contextual senses of the same token (e.g., python the language vs. the animal) into a single fixed entry. We introduce Mixture of Memory Embeddings (MoME), a context-aware memory mechanism that replaces each token's single memory row with a mixture of M slots and uses a learned gate over the hidden state to choose which slots to read at each position. In controlled pretraining experiments across nanochat, Llama-3/MobileLLM, and Qwen3 backbones, MoME improves over Value Embedding, Bigram, and STEM baselines in iso-parameter and iso-training-FLOP settings, shows a more promising memory-size scaling trend at sub-billion scale, and remains efficient in training and inference. Qualitative routing analyses on polysemous tokens further suggest that the learned mixture exhibits a degree of semantic interpretability, dispatching the same surface token to distinct memory slots under different senses.
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Paper page - MoME: Mixture-of-Memory Embeddings for Context-Aware Sparse Lookup

Source: https://huggingface.co/papers/2609.15126

Abstract

ScalinglargelanguagemodelsefficientlyhasmotivatedsparsecapacitymechanismssuchasMixture-of-Expertsand,morerecently,conditionalmemory:token-indexedembeddingtablesthataugmentthebackbonewithcheapparametriclookups.Existingmemory-embeddingmethodsretrieveviaadeterministicfunctionofthesurfaceform,whichcollapsesdifferentcontextualsensesofthesametoken(e.g.,pythonthelanguagevs.theanimal)intoasinglefixedentry.WeintroduceMixtureofMemoryEmbeddings(MoME),acontext-awarememorymechanismthatreplaceseachtoken’ssinglememoryrowwithamixtureofMslotsandusesalearnedgateoverthehiddenstatetochoosewhichslotstoreadateachposition.Incontrolledpretrainingexperimentsacrossnanochat,Llama-3/MobileLLM,andQwen3backbones,MoMEimprovesoverValueEmbedding,Bigram,andSTEMbaselinesiniso-parameterandiso-training-FLOPsettings,showsamorepromisingmemory-sizescalingtrendatsub-billionscale,andremainsefficientintrainingandinference.Qualitativeroutinganalysesonpolysemoustokensfurthersuggestthatthelearnedmixtureexhibitsadegreeofsemanticinterpretability,dispatchingthesamesurfacetokentodistinctmemoryslotsunderdifferentsenses.

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