diff --git a/nanovllm/layers/rotary_embedding.py b/nanovllm/layers/rotary_embedding.py
index 998d11646..489afa787 100644
--- a/nanovllm/layers/rotary_embedding.py
+++ b/nanovllm/layers/rotary_embedding.py
@@ -48,14 +48,40 @@ def forward(
         return query, key
 
 
+def _normalize_rope_scaling(
+    rope_scaling: dict | None,
+) -> None:
+    if rope_scaling is None:
+        return None
+    rope_type = rope_scaling.get("rope_type", rope_scaling.get("type"))
+    if rope_type == "default":
+        return None
+    if rope_type is None and set(rope_scaling).issubset({"rope_theta"}):
+        return None
+    raise NotImplementedError(
+        f"Unsupported rope_scaling={rope_scaling!r}. "
+        "nano-vllm only supports default RoPE without scaling."
+    )
+
+
 @lru_cache(1)
-def get_rope(
+def _get_rope(
     head_size: int,
     rotary_dim: int,
     max_position: int,
     base: float,
-    rope_scaling: dict | None = None,
+    rope_scaling: None = None,
 ):
-    assert rope_scaling is None
     rotary_emb = RotaryEmbedding(head_size, rotary_dim, max_position, base)
     return rotary_emb
+
+
+def get_rope(
+    head_size: int,
+    rotary_dim: int,
+    max_position: int,
+    base: float,
+    rope_scaling: dict | None = None,
+):
+    rope_scaling = _normalize_rope_scaling(rope_scaling)
+    return _get_rope(head_size, rotary_dim, max_position, base, rope_scaling)
diff --git a/nanovllm/models/qwen3.py b/nanovllm/models/qwen3.py
index 5d39e0b90..71c3b6e5d 100755
--- a/nanovllm/models/qwen3.py
+++ b/nanovllm/models/qwen3.py
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ def __init__(
         rms_norm_eps: float = 1e-06,
         qkv_bias: bool = False,
         rope_theta: float = 10000,
-        rope_scaling: tuple | None = None,
+        rope_scaling: dict | None = None,
     ) -> None:
         super().__init__()
         tp_size = dist.get_world_size()