CacheBridge: Efficient Cross-Model KV Transfer for Multi-Model LLM Serving

Abstract

Multi-model LLM serving uses routers, cascades and agent workflows to move requests across models with different costs and capabilities. Existing serving systems reuse KV caches only within one model, so every switch forces the target to re-prefill history the source already processed, adding time to first token (TTFT) that grows with history length and target size. Cross-model KV transfer can replace this prefill, yet prior methods are slower than re-prefill end to end. We present CacheBridge, the first serving system to accelerate heterogeneous multi-model workloads through cross-model KV transfer. It co-designs a compact, attention-calibrated KV mapper with systematic optimization for online multi-model serving, which makes model switch efficient on latency and memory cost. In Qwen3 14B$\to$32B agent serving on $\tau$-bench, it reduces mean TTFT by $30$ to $98\%$ versus re-prefill at $1$ to $24$ QPS with comparable task success. Across five model pairs from three families, it uses $8$ to $12\times$ less mapper memory than Closed-Form Mapper and retains on average $97.94\%$ and $102.94\%$ of re-prefill task quality on chat/reasoning and RAG workloads, respectively. The promising results have opened new opportunities for efficient multi-model LLM serving through cross-model KV reuse.