Bi-Anchor Interpolation Solver for Accelerating Generative Modeling

TL;DR

The paper introduces the BA-solver, a novel interpolation method that accelerates flow matching models for generative tasks by combining a lightweight SideNet with a backbone, achieving high-quality results with fewer neural evaluations.

Contribution

The paper proposes the Bi-Anchor Interpolation Solver (BA-solver), a new approach that accelerates generative modeling by integrating a lightweight SideNet with a backbone for efficient velocity approximation.

Findings

Achieves comparable quality to 100+ NFEs Euler solver with only 10 NFEs.

Maintains high fidelity in as few as 5 NFEs.

Ensures seamless integration with existing generative pipelines.

Abstract

Flow Matching (FM) models have emerged as a leading paradigm for high-fidelity synthesis. However, their reliance on iterative Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE) solving creates a significant latency bottleneck. Existing solutions face a dichotomy: training-free solvers suffer from significant performance degradation at low Neural Function Evaluations (NFEs), while training-based one- or few-steps generation methods incur prohibitive training costs and lack plug-and-play versatility. To bridge this gap, we propose the Bi-Anchor Interpolation Solver (BA-solver). BA-solver retains the versatility of standard training-free solvers while achieving significant acceleration by introducing a lightweight SideNet (1-2% backbone size) alongside the frozen backbone. Specifically, our method is founded on two synergistic components: \textbf{1) Bidirectional Temporal Perception}, where the SideNet learns to approximate both future and historical velocities without retraining the heavy backbone; and 2) Bi-Anchor Velocity Integration, which utilizes the SideNet with two anchor velocities to efficiently approximate intermediate velocities for batched high-order integration. By utilizing the backbone to establish high-precision ``anchors'' and the SideNet to densify the trajectory, BA-solver enables large interval sizes with minimized error. Empirical results on ImageNet-256^2 demonstrate that BA-solver achieves generation quality comparable to 100+ NFEs Euler solver in just 10 NFEs and maintains high fidelity in as few as 5 NFEs, incurring negligible training costs. Furthermore, BA-solver ensures seamless integration with existing generative pipelines, facilitating downstream tasks such as image editing.