# Decoupled Transformer for Scalable Inference in Open-domain Question Answering Source: [Decoupled Transformer for Scalable Inference in Open-domain Question Answering]() Collection index: [llms.txt]() Data updated: 2025-10-27T06:08:37.319Z Authors: Haytham ElFadeel, Stan Peshterliev Published: 2021-08-05T17:53:40.000Z ## Abstract Large transformer models, such as BERT, achieve state-of-the-art results in machine reading comprehension (MRC) for open-domain question answering (QA). However, transformers have a high computational cost for inference which makes them hard to apply to online QA systems for applications like voice assistants. To reduce computational cost and latency, we propose decoupling the transformer MRC model into input-component and cross-component. The decoupling allows for part of the representation computation to be performed offline and cached for online use. To retain the decoupled transformer accuracy, we devised a knowledge distillation objective from a standard transformer model. Moreover, we introduce learned representation compression layers which help reduce by four times the storage requirement for the cache. In experiments on the SQUAD 2.0 dataset, a decoupled transformer reduces the computational cost and latency of open-domain MRC by 30-40% with only 1.2 points worse F1-score compared to a standard transformer. ## Recorded benchmark results A research result applies to its stated dataset, split, metric and evaluation configuration. Compare like-for-like settings, preserve the metric's unit and direction, and distinguish paper-reported results from independent reproduction. The best result recorded here is not a claim of exhaustive, current global coverage. ## Original sources and implementation [Original paper]() [PDF]()