diff --git a/include/flexflow/model.h b/include/flexflow/model.h
index 6f805e21bd..75b1dbcbe9 100644
--- a/include/flexflow/model.h
+++ b/include/flexflow/model.h
@@ -1090,7 +1090,7 @@ class FFModel {
   std::unordered_map<Op *, std::vector<std::pair<Op *, int>>>
       get_bwd_edge_map() const;
 
-  // Internal funcitons
+  // Internal functions
   Legion::IndexSpace get_or_create_task_is(ParallelConfig const &pc);
   Legion::IndexSpace get_or_create_task_is(MachineView const &view);
   Legion::IndexSpace get_or_create_task_is(Legion::Domain const &domain);
@@ -1098,6 +1098,7 @@ class FFModel {
   Legion::IndexSpace get_task_is(Legion::Domain const &domain) const;
   Legion::IndexSpace get_task_is(ParallelConfig const &pc) const;
   Legion::IndexSpace get_task_is(MachineView const &view) const;
+  bool is_mlp_block(int layer_idx) const;
   void create_operators_from_layers();
   Op *create_operator_from_layer(Layer *layer,
                                  std::vector<ParallelTensor> const &inputs);
diff --git a/inference/models/opt.cc b/inference/models/opt.cc
index 0279f83239..e260f8fa36 100644
--- a/inference/models/opt.cc
+++ b/inference/models/opt.cc
@@ -196,7 +196,7 @@ void OPT::create_opt_model(FFModel &ff,
     Tensor fc1 =
         ff.dense(final_norm,
                  opt_config.ffn_dim,
-                 AC_MODE_NONE,
+                 AC_MODE_RELU,
                  true,
                  DT_NONE,
                  nullptr,
@@ -205,8 +205,7 @@ void OPT::create_opt_model(FFModel &ff,
                  REG_MODE_NONE,
                  0.0f,
                  std::string("layers_" + std::to_string(i) + "_fc1").c_str());
-    Tensor activation = ff.relu(fc1, false);
-    fc2 = ff.dense(activation,
+    fc2 = ff.dense(fc1,
                    opt_config.hidden_size,
                    AC_MODE_NONE,
                    true,
diff --git a/python/flexflow/serve/models/opt.py b/python/flexflow/serve/models/opt.py
index dfd1cde7d4..dd36fa6592 100644
--- a/python/flexflow/serve/models/opt.py
+++ b/python/flexflow/serve/models/opt.py
@@ -216,13 +216,12 @@ def build_model(self, max_tokens_per_batch):
             fc1 = ffmodel.dense(
                 ff_norm,
                 self.opt_config.ffn_dim,
-                ActiMode.AC_MODE_NONE,
+                ActiMode.AC_MODE_RELU,
                 True,
                 name=f"layers_{i}_fc1",
             )
-            activation = ffmodel.relu(fc1, False)
             fc2 = ffmodel.dense(
-                activation,
+                fc1,
                 self.opt_config.hidden_size,
                 ActiMode.AC_MODE_NONE,
                 True,
diff --git a/src/ops/kernels/linear_kernels.cu b/src/ops/kernels/linear_kernels.cu
index 9373c2fb2f..c30c9f71c1 100644
--- a/src/ops/kernels/linear_kernels.cu
+++ b/src/ops/kernels/linear_kernels.cu
@@ -252,6 +252,18 @@ Parameter* Linear::get_parameter(int index)
 */
 namespace Internal {
 
+template <typename DT>
+__global__ void AddBiasWithReLU(DT *output_ptr,
+                                DT const *bias_ptr,
+                                int out_dim,
+                                int batch_size) {
+  CUDA_KERNEL_LOOP(i, out_dim * batch_size) {
+    int bias_idx = i % out_dim;
+    DT value = output_ptr[i] + bias_ptr[bias_idx];
+    output_ptr[i] = ((float)value > 0.0f) ? value : (DT)0.0f;
+  }
+}
+
 template <typename DT>
 void forward_kernel(LinearMeta const *m,
                     void const *input_ptr,
@@ -343,6 +355,16 @@ void forward_kernel(LinearMeta const *m,
                          CUBLAS_GEMM_DEFAULT_TENSOR_OP));
   // use_bias = True
   if (bias_ptr != NULL) {
+    // fuse bias and relu
+    if (m->activation == AC_MODE_RELU) {
+      int parallelism = out_dim * batch_size;
+      AddBiasWithReLU<<<GET_BLOCKS(parallelism), CUDA_NUM_THREADS, 0, stream>>>(
+          static_cast<DT *>(output_ptr),
+          static_cast<DT const *>(bias_ptr),
+          out_dim,
+          batch_size);
+      return;
+    }
     checkCUDA(cublasGemmEx(m->handle.blas,
                            CUBLAS_OP_T,
                            CUBLAS_OP_N,
diff --git a/src/runtime/model.cc b/src/runtime/model.cc
index 76bed36bda..4270515224 100644
--- a/src/runtime/model.cc
+++ b/src/runtime/model.cc
@@ -3236,6 +3236,27 @@ Op *FFModel::create_operator_from_layer(
   }
 }
 
+bool FFModel::is_mlp_block(int layer_idx) const {
+  auto const &l = layers[layer_idx];
+  // standard opt relu
+  if (l->op_type == OP_LINEAR && layer_idx >= 2 &&
+      layers[layer_idx - 1]->op_type == OP_RELU &&
+      layers[layer_idx - 2]->op_type == OP_LINEAR) {
+    return true;
+  }
+  // mlp layer with relu embedded in first dense layer
+  if (l->op_type == OP_LINEAR && layer_idx >= 1 &&
+      layers[layer_idx - 1]->op_type == OP_LINEAR) {
+    long long value;
+    layers[layer_idx - 1]->get_int_property("activation", value);
+    ActiMode activation = (ActiMode)value;
+    if (activation == AC_MODE_RELU) {
+      return true;
+    }
+  }
+  return false;
+}
+
 void FFModel::create_operators_from_layers() {
   std::map<const Tensor, ParallelTensor> tensors_to_parallel_tensors;
   // for (auto const &l : layers) {
@@ -3280,9 +3301,9 @@ void FFModel::create_operators_from_layers() {
                config.tensor_parallelism_degree > 1 &&
                (l->op_type == OP_INC_MULTIHEAD_SELF_ATTENTION ||
                 l->op_type == OP_TREE_INC_MULTIHEAD_SELF_ATTENTION ||
-                (l->op_type == OP_LINEAR && layer_idx >= 2 &&
-                 layers[layer_idx - 1]->op_type == OP_RELU &&
-                 layers[layer_idx - 2]->op_type == OP_LINEAR) ||
+                // mlp layer
+                is_mlp_block(layer_idx) ||
+                // llama mlp layer
                 (l->op_type == OP_LINEAR && layer_idx >= 2 &&
                  layers[layer_idx - 1]->op_type == OP_GELU &&
                  layers[layer_idx - 2]->op_type == OP_LINEAR) ||