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Abra: Scaling Diffusion Image Training

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Computer Science > Machine Learning

arXiv:2608.17286 (cs)
[Submitted on 18 Aug 2026]

Title:Abra: Scaling Diffusion Image Training

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Abstract:Compute-optimal scaling laws guide the training of frontier language models yet remain largely unexplored for visual generation. We present a systematic scaling law study for text-to-image diffusion models using Abra, a controlled family of flow-matching transformers trained across three orders of magnitude worth of compute ($10^{19}$ to $10^{22}$ FLOPs), reaching significantly larger compute budgets than previous works. We demonstrate that diffusion models scale just as predictably as language models but require far more data to train optimally: compute optimality occurs at approximately $200$ image tokens per parameter, ten times the Chinchilla compute-optimal prescription for LLMs. We show that unlike language models, diffusion models are robust to overtraining and that practitioners should err on the side of more data rather than a larger model. Finally, we show that this predictability extends beyond training loss to generative quality metrics, optimal CFG settings, representation quality, and even the shape of the training curves, which collapse onto a universal form.
Comments: 25 pages, 19 figures
Subjects: Machine Learning (cs.LG)
Cite as: arXiv:2608.17286 [cs.LG]
  (or arXiv:2608.17286v1 [cs.LG] for this version)
  https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.17286
arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

Submission history

From: Kyle Chickering [view email]
[v1] Tue, 18 Aug 2026 02:36:25 UTC (4,645 KB)
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