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What is model cold-start / warmup in serving, and how do you handle it for autoscaling?

A freshly started replica is slow on its first requests while it loads weights and compiles kernels, and that clashes with reactive autoscaling. The signal is naming the cold-start sources and the warmup and provisioning fixes.

Updated Aug 2026 · Grounded in real Applied AI Engineer interview loops and written to a senior-engineer editorial bar.

A freshly started replica is slow on its first requests while it loads weights and compiles kernels, and that clashes with reactive autoscaling. The signal is naming the cold-start sources and the warmup and provisioning fixes.

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