DeepSeek V4.1

Size
552B + 196B Engram
Published
DeepSeek · Sep 2026
Line
New parts in the block · after DeepSeek-V3.2-Exp
Source

deepseek‑ai/DeepSeek‑V4.1‑Flash @ 2cba9e4 · parameter count checked against the checkpoint’s tensor headers · text model onlyHow to read

Sparse attention

40 layers › 2 groups of 6 layers › Source layer, pairs pooled › Compressed sparse attention › Sparse attention

Listed rows

×

tensortopk_idxs

For each query, the rows it attends to: up to 128 from the window and 512 compressed.

shape
JJ [B batch, T positions, n listed rows]
Sources

Contextual evidence from Join lists

Queries through the latent with their rotary part rotated; window and compressed keys and values joined; sparse attention over the listed positions; the output rotated back, projected per group of heads and then to the model width.

attention-forward · deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash / inference/model.py
Pinned revision 2cba9e42aa02 ↗ · lines 765–789

Read code excerpt
    def forward(self, x: torch.Tensor, start_pos: int):
        bsz, seqlen, _ = x.size()
        freqs_cis = self.freqs_cis[start_pos : start_pos + seqlen]
        rd = self.rope_head_dim

        qr = self.q_norm(self.wq_a(x))
        q = self.wq_b(qr).unflatten(-1, (self.n_local_heads, self.head_dim))
        apply_rotary_emb(q[..., -rd:], freqs_cis)

        kv, topk_idxs = self._window_kv(x, freqs_cis, start_pos)
        if self.compress_ratio:
            compress_kv, compress_idxs = self._compress_kv(x, qr, start_pos, kv.size(1))
            kv = torch.cat([kv, compress_kv], dim=1)
            topk_idxs = torch.cat([topk_idxs, compress_idxs], dim=-1)

        o = sparse_attn(q, kv, self.attn_sink, topk_idxs, self.softmax_scale)
        apply_rotary_emb(o[..., -rd:], freqs_cis, True)

        # wo_a is block-diagonal over groups (each projects only its own heads), hence einsum not
        # Linear. convert.py dequantizes it to bf16; an fp8 grouped GEMM would halve the memory.
        o = o.view(bsz, seqlen, self.n_local_groups, -1)
        wo_a = self.wo_a.weight.view(self.n_local_groups, self.o_lora_rank, -1)
        o = torch.einsum("bsgd,grd->bsgr", o, wo_a)
        x = self.wo_b(o.flatten(2))
        return x

Contextual evidence from Join lists

The indexer scores every compressed position for every query with few small heads against one shared key, masks what the query may not see, and keeps the best 512; the candidate source also publishes its candidate blocks, and later indexers score inside them.

indexer · deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash / inference/model.py
Pinned revision 2cba9e42aa02 ↗ · lines 488–580

Read code excerpt
class Indexer(torch.nn.Module):
    """Keeps the `index_topk` best compressed positions per query.

    A small side attention: fp4 query heads against one shared key per compressed position, scores
    rectified then combined by `weights_proj`. With a candidate source this is the second of two
    levels; `select_candidate_blocks` is the first.
    """

    def __init__(self, args: ModelArgs, layer_id: int):
        super().__init__()
        # the index keys are derived from the compressor's latent, so only a layer that compresses
        # its own KV can produce them; every other indexer reads them from that layer's cache
        self.owns_k = layer_id in args.kv_source_layers
        self.compress_ratio = args.compress_ratios[layer_id]
        self.is_candidate_source = layer_id == args.candidate_source_layer
        self.uses_candidates = 0 <= args.candidate_source_layer < layer_id
        self.candidate_topk_blocks = args.candidate_topk_blocks
        self.candidate_block_size = args.candidate_block_size
        self.dim = args.dim
        self.n_heads = args.index_n_heads
        self.n_local_heads = args.index_n_heads // world_size
        self.index_head_dim = args.index_head_dim
        self.rope_head_dim = args.rope_head_dim
        self.index_topk = args.index_topk
        self.q_lora_rank = args.q_lora_rank
        self.softmax_scale = self.index_head_dim**-0.5
        self.wq_b = ColumnParallelLinear(self.q_lora_rank, self.n_heads * self.index_head_dim)
        self.weights_proj = ColumnParallelLinear(self.dim, self.n_heads, dtype=torch.bfloat16)
        self.freqs_cis: torch.Tensor | None = None
        if self.owns_k:
            self.wk = Linear(args.head_dim, self.index_head_dim, dtype=torch.bfloat16)
            self.k_norm = RMSNorm(self.index_head_dim, args.norm_eps)
            self.k_cache: torch.Tensor
            self.register_buffer(
                "k_cache",
                torch.zeros(args.max_batch_size, args.max_seq_len // self.compress_ratio, args.index_head_dim),
                persistent=False,
            )

    def forward(self, x: torch.Tensor, qr: torch.Tensor, latent: torch.Tensor, start_pos: int, offset: int):
        """`latent` is this layer's RoPE-free compressed latent, None when this layer does not
        compress or when its current group is still incomplete. An index-key owner turns it into
        index keys here, which has to happen before Attention overwrites that same storage with
        the RoPE'd, quantized values."""
        assert self.freqs_cis is not None
        bsz, seqlen, _ = x.size()
        ratio, rd, end_pos = self.compress_ratio, self.rope_head_dim, start_pos + seqlen

        # latent is None while a group is still filling up, so there is nothing to publish yet
        if self.owns_k and latent is not None:
            # a latent stands for the first token of its group, so group j takes position j * ratio
            freqs = (
                self.freqs_cis[: seqlen - seqlen % ratio : ratio]
                if start_pos == 0
                else self.freqs_cis[start_pos + 1 - ratio].unsqueeze(0)
            )
            k = self.k_norm(self.wk(latent))
            apply_rotary_emb(k[..., -rd:], freqs)
            fp4_act_quant(k, fp4_block_size, True)
            self.k_cache[:bsz, start_pos // ratio : start_pos // ratio + k.size(1)] = k
            shared_attn.index_k = self.k_cache

        q = self.wq_b(qr).unflatten(-1, (self.n_local_heads, self.index_head_dim))
        apply_rotary_emb(q[..., -rd:], self.freqs_cis[start_pos:end_pos])
        fp4_act_quant(q, fp4_block_size, True)

        index_k = shared_attn.index_k[:bsz, : end_pos // ratio]
        weights = self.weights_proj(x) * (self.softmax_scale * self.n_heads**-0.5)
        index_score = torch.einsum("bshd,btd->bsht", q, index_k)
        index_score = (index_score.relu_() * weights.unsqueeze(-1)).sum(dim=2)
        if world_size > 1:
            dist.all_reduce(index_score)

        # how many compressed positions each query can see: a block becomes visible once the query
        # has passed its last token. One query per decode step, so there it is just a number.
        if start_pos == 0:
            compress_lens = (torch.arange(1, seqlen + 1, device=x.device) // ratio).unsqueeze(-1)
            index_score.masked_fill_(torch.arange(seqlen // ratio, device=x.device) >= compress_lens, -torch.inf)
        else:
            compress_lens = end_pos // ratio

        if self.is_candidate_source:
            shared_attn.candidates = select_candidate_blocks(
                index_score, compress_lens, self.candidate_topk_blocks, self.candidate_block_size
            )
        elif self.uses_candidates:
            # level two: score with our own weights, but only inside the source's candidate blocks
            index_score = index_score.masked_fill(~shared_attn.candidates, -torch.inf)

        # top-k by score, re-sorted into position order; unreachable -> -1, rest shifted by offset
        topk = min(self.index_topk, end_pos // ratio)
        idxs = index_score.topk(topk, dim=-1, sorted=False).indices.sort(dim=-1).values
        return torch.where(idxs < compress_lens, idxs + offset, -1).int()

Contextual evidence from Gather rows

Sparse attention: each query head scores the gathered key–value rows, the softmax has one more term in its denominator from the head’s learned sink, and the output is the weighted sum of the same rows.

sparse-attn · deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash / inference/kernel.py
Pinned revision 2cba9e42aa02 ↗ · lines 310–403

Read code excerpt
@tilelang.jit(pass_configs=pass_configs)
def sparse_attn_kernel(h: int, d: int, scale=None):
    """Sparse multi-head attention via index gathering + online softmax (FlashAttention-style).
    For each (batch, seq_pos), gathers top-k KV positions by index, computes attention
    with numerically stable running max/sum, and includes a learnable attn_sink bias."""
    b = T.symbolic("b")
    m = T.symbolic("m")
    n = T.symbolic("n")
    topk = T.symbolic("topk")
    if scale is None:
        scale = (1.0 / d) ** 0.5

    num_stages = 2
    threads = 256
    block = 64
    num_blocks = tilelang.cdiv(topk, block)

    @T.prim_func
    def sparse_attn_kernel_(
        q: T.Tensor[(b, m, h, d), BF16],
        kv: T.Tensor[(b, n, d), BF16],
        o: T.Tensor[(b, m, h, d), BF16],
        attn_sink: T.Tensor[(h,), FP32],
        topk_idxs: T.Tensor[(b, m, topk), INT32],
    ):
        with T.Kernel(m, b, threads=threads) as (bx, by):
            q_shared = T.alloc_shared((h, d), BF16)
            kv_shared = T.alloc_shared((block, d), BF16)
            o_shared = T.alloc_shared((h, d), BF16)
            acc_s_cast = T.alloc_shared((h, block), BF16)

            idxs = T.alloc_fragment(block, INT32)
            acc_s = T.alloc_fragment((h, block), FP32)
            acc_o = T.alloc_fragment((h, d), FP32)
            scores_max = T.alloc_fragment(h, FP32)
            scores_max_prev = T.alloc_fragment(h, FP32)
            scores_scale = T.alloc_fragment(h, FP32)
            scores_sum = T.alloc_fragment(h, FP32)
            sum_exp = T.alloc_fragment(h, FP32)

            T.clear(acc_o)
            T.clear(sum_exp)
            # Finite lower bound instead of -inf: a row with no valid index (all -1) would otherwise
            # produce exp(-inf - (-inf)) = NaN. With a finite bound such rows yield an all-zero output,
            # matching the training kernel's convention.
            T.fill(scores_max, -1e30)
            T.copy(q[by, bx, :, :], q_shared)

            for t in T.Pipelined(num_blocks, num_stages=num_stages):
                for i in T.Parallel(block):
                    idxs[i] = T.if_then_else(t * block + i < topk, topk_idxs[by, bx, t * block + i], -1)
                for i, j in T.Parallel(block, d):
                    kv_shared[i, j] = T.if_then_else(idxs[i] != -1, kv[by, idxs[i], j], 0)
                for i, j in T.Parallel(h, block):
                    acc_s[i, j] = T.if_then_else(idxs[j] != -1, 0, -T.infinity(FP32))
                T.gemm(q_shared, kv_shared, acc_s, transpose_B=True, policy=T.GemmWarpPolicy.FullRow)
                for i, j in T.Parallel(h, block):
                    acc_s[i, j] *= scale
                T.copy(scores_max, scores_max_prev)
                T.reduce_max(acc_s, scores_max, dim=1, clear=False)
                for i in T.Parallel(h):
                    scores_scale[i] = T.exp(scores_max_prev[i] - scores_max[i])
                for i, j in T.Parallel(h, block):
                    acc_s[i, j] = T.exp(acc_s[i, j] - scores_max[i])
                T.reduce_sum(acc_s, scores_sum, dim=1)
                for i in T.Parallel(h):
                    sum_exp[i] = sum_exp[i] * scores_scale[i] + scores_sum[i]
                T.copy(acc_s, acc_s_cast)
                for i, j in T.Parallel(h, d):
                    acc_o[i, j] *= scores_scale[i]
                T.gemm(acc_s_cast, kv_shared, acc_o, policy=T.GemmWarpPolicy.FullRow)

            for i in T.Parallel(h):
                sum_exp[i] += T.exp(attn_sink[i] - scores_max[i])
            for i, j in T.Parallel(h, d):
                acc_o[i, j] /= sum_exp[i]
            T.copy(acc_o, o_shared)
            T.copy(o_shared, o[by, bx, :, :])

    return sparse_attn_kernel_


def sparse_attn(q: torch.Tensor, kv: torch.Tensor, attn_sink: torch.Tensor, topk_idxs: torch.Tensor, softmax_scale: float) -> torch.Tensor:
    b, s, h, d = q.size()
    # Pad heads to 16 for kernel efficiency (stripped after)
    if h < 16:
        q = torch.cat([q, q.new_zeros(b, s, 16 - h, d)], dim=2)
        attn_sink = torch.cat([attn_sink, attn_sink.new_zeros(16 - h)])
    o = torch.empty_like(q)
    kernel = sparse_attn_kernel(q.size(2), d, softmax_scale)
    kernel(q, kv, o, attn_sink, topk_idxs)
    if h < 16:
        o = o.narrow(2, 0, h).contiguous()
    return o