Scale-QLoRA: Code-Invariant Adapter Merging for Native 4-bit Microscaling LLMs
Merging a LoRA adapter into its base model is standard deployment practice: it removes the runtime adapter's per-forward overhead and leaves a single standalone checkpoint any serving stack can load. On a native 4-bit microscaling checkpoint (NVFP4, MXFP4) that step stops being free. The merged weights must be written back through a quantizer, which re-derives the checkpoint's discrete E2M1 code plane (roughly 90% of the artifact's bytes), so the deployed artifact becomes coupled to one quantization convention, and every later code-touching event in its lifecycle can move it. Done naively the step is worse than fragile: it deletes the adaptation, by up to 39 pp, because against an already...
| Authors | Tung-Ling Li, Jiale Huang, Lee-Chi Wang et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CL |
| Published | 3 September 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 3 September 2026 |
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