---
title: "How AI memory works: five systems, not one"
description: "A technical map of model weights, context windows, KV caches, recurrent state, retrieval, and the limits of what AI systems remember."
canonical_url: "https://fanout.sh/blog/how-ai-memory-works-five-systems"
md_url: "https://fanout.sh/blog/how-ai-memory-works-five-systems.md"
last_updated: "2026-07-29"
access: "public"
---

# How AI memory works: five systems, not one

A technical map of model weights, context windows, KV caches, recurrent state, retrieval, and the limits of what AI systems remember.

- Author: Suraj Gaud

- Published: 2026-07-29

- Track: AI research

- Access: Fanout Pro

- Tags: AI memory, context window, KV cache, retrieval augmented generation, Kimi Delta Attention

The complete article body is available to Fanout Pro members on the canonical page.

---
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