diff --git a/router/src/infer.rs b/router/src/infer.rs
index 0b234550c..b1f751a28 100644
--- a/router/src/infer.rs
+++ b/router/src/infer.rs
@@ -161,6 +161,7 @@ impl Infer {
         speculate: u32,
         preloaded_adapters: Vec<PreloadedAdapter>,
         prefix_caching: bool,
+        is_causal_lm: bool,
     ) -> Self {
         let adapter_event = Arc::new(AdapterEvent {
             batching_task: Notify::new(),
@@ -178,6 +179,7 @@ impl Infer {
             speculate,
             max_batch_total_tokens,
             prefix_caching,
+            is_causal_lm,
         );
 
         // Initialize with base model adapter (empty) mapping to index 0
@@ -729,13 +731,19 @@ impl Infer {
             .map(|(id, input)| (id as u64, input.clone()))
             .collect();
 
-        for (id, r_inputs) in request.inputs.iter().enumerate() {
-            let inputs = r_inputs.to_string().clone();
-            let (tokenized_inputs, input_length) = self
-                .validation
-                .validate_input(r_inputs.to_string(), None, Some(1))
-                .await?;
+        // Call validate_input on every input in the request and await the results
+        let futures: Vec<_> = request
+            .inputs
+            .iter()
+            .map(|input| self.validation.validate_input(input.clone(), None, Some(1)))
+            .collect();
 
+        let all_tokenized_inputs = try_join_all(futures).await?;
+
+        for ((id, r_inputs), (tokenized_inputs, input_length)) in
+            request.inputs.iter().enumerate().zip(all_tokenized_inputs)
+        {
+            let inputs = r_inputs.to_string().clone();
             let valid_request = ValidClassifyRequest {
                 inputs,
                 tokenized_inputs,
diff --git a/router/src/scheduler.rs b/router/src/scheduler.rs
index 37864c452..08b274f3a 100644
--- a/router/src/scheduler.rs
+++ b/router/src/scheduler.rs
@@ -44,6 +44,7 @@ impl AdapterScheduler {
         speculate: u32,
         max_batch_total_tokens: u32,
         prefix_caching: bool,
+        is_causal_lm: bool,
     ) -> Self {
         let (sender, receiver) = flume::unbounded();
 
@@ -60,6 +61,7 @@ impl AdapterScheduler {
             speculate,
             max_batch_total_tokens,
             prefix_caching,
+            is_causal_lm,
         ));
 
         Self { sender }
@@ -124,6 +126,7 @@ async fn adapter_scheduler_task(
     speculate: u32,
     max_batch_total_tokens: u32,
     prefix_caching: bool,
+    is_causal_lm: bool,
 ) {
     let mut state = AdapterSchedulerState::new(
         client,
@@ -135,6 +138,7 @@ async fn adapter_scheduler_task(
         speculate,
         max_batch_total_tokens,
         prefix_caching,
+        is_causal_lm,
     );
 
     while let Ok(cmd) = receiver.recv_async().await {
@@ -209,6 +213,7 @@ impl AdapterSchedulerState {
         speculate: u32,
         max_batch_total_tokens: u32,
         prefix_caching: bool,
+        is_causal_lm: bool,
     ) -> Self {
         let queues_state = Arc::new(Mutex::new(AdapterQueuesState::new(
             max_active_adapters,
@@ -216,7 +221,8 @@ impl AdapterSchedulerState {
         )));
         let loader = AdapterLoader::new(client.clone());
 
-        let block_allocator = (!requires_padding).then(|| {
+        // Only causal LMs require the block allocator, due to paged attention
+        let block_allocator = (!requires_padding && is_causal_lm).then(|| {
             BlockAllocator::new(
                 max_batch_total_tokens,
                 block_size,
diff --git a/router/src/server.rs b/router/src/server.rs
index 552681d32..7195ed532 100644
--- a/router/src/server.rs
+++ b/router/src/server.rs
@@ -1134,12 +1134,21 @@ pub async fn run(
         generation_health.clone(),
         shard_info.clone(),
     );
+
+    // For non-causal LMs, the max batch total tokens is equal to the max batch prefill tokens
+    let is_causal_lm = shard_info.supports_generation;
+    let effective_max_batch_total_tokens = if is_causal_lm {
+        max_batch_total_tokens
+    } else {
+        max_batch_prefill_tokens
+    };
+
     let infer = Infer::new(
         client.clone(),
         validation,
         waiting_served_ratio,
         max_batch_prefill_tokens,
-        max_batch_total_tokens,
+        effective_max_batch_total_tokens,
         max_waiting_tokens,
         max_concurrent_requests,
         max_active_adapters,
@@ -1154,6 +1163,7 @@ pub async fn run(
         shard_info.speculate,
         shard_info.preloaded_adapters,
         prefix_caching,
+        is_causal_lm,
     );
 
     // Duration buckets