SNGM improves large-batch training accuracy.
problem Improving generalization in large-batch training.
method Stochastic Normalized Gradient Descent with Momentum.
result SNGM achieves better test accuracy than MSGD and other large-batch methods.
DReg boosts large-batch SGD's generalization and convergence.
problem Large-batch SGD struggles with generalization in deep learning.
method DReg replicates a layer to encourage parameter diversity.
result DReg improves generalization and convergence with large-batch SGD.
Large batch training with DP-SGD reduces model performance due to implicit bias.
problem Large batch training with DP-SGD reduces model performance.
method The study analyzes the phenomenon of implicit bias in Noisy-SGD (DP-SGD without clipping) and its theoretical solutions for linear models.
result The implicit bias in large batch training with DP-SGD is amplified by additional noise, similar to SGD.
Large batch sizes reduce gradient variance in DP-SGD, improving privacy.
problem Understanding why large batch sizes work in DP-SGD.
method Decomposed total gradient variance into subsampling and noise-induced variances, proving batch size independence in the limit.
result Large batch sizes reduce effective total gradient variance, improving privacy in DP-SGD.
In stochastic optimization, using large batch sizes during training can leverage parallel resources to produce faster wall-clock training times per training epoch. However, for both training loss and testing error, recent results analyzing large batch Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) have found sharp diminishing retur…
AdaScale SGD adapts learning rates for large-batch training efficiently.
problem Adapting learning rates for large-batch training to balance speed-ups and model quality.
method Adaptive learning rate adaptation based on gradient variance.
result AdaScale achieves reliable speed-ups for a wide range of batch sizes without degrading model quality.
Distributed implementations of mini-batch stochastic gradient descent (SGD) suffer from communication overheads, attributed to the high frequency of gradient updates inherent in small-batch training. Training with large batches can reduce these overheads; however, large batches can affect the convergence properties and…
Large-batch stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is widely used for training in distributed deep learning because of its training-time efficiency, however, extremely large-batch SGD leads to poor generalization and easily converges to sharp minima, which prevents naive large-scale data-parallel SGD (DP-SGD) from convergin…
Noise in SGD helps deep nets generalize better, even with smaller batch sizes.
problem The generalization benefit of using noise in SGD over large batch sizes.
method Carefully designed experiments and rigorous hyperparameter sweeps on various models.
result Small or moderately large batch sizes outperform very large batches on test sets.
Mini-batch stochastic gradient methods (SGD) are state of the art for distributed training of deep neural networks. Drastic increases in the mini-batch sizes have lead to key efficiency and scalability gains in recent years. However, progress faces a major roadblock, as models trained with large batches often do not ge…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is almost ubiquitously used for training non-convex optimization tasks. Recently, a hypothesis proposed by Keskar et al. [2017] that large batch methods tend to converge to sharp minimizers has received increasing attention. We theoretically justify this hypothesis by providing new pro…
Empirical study on SGD hyperparameters and adversarial robustness.
problem Effect of SGD hyperparameters on adversarial robustness and generalization.
method Empirical observation of learning rate, batch size, and momentum effects on adversarial robustness and generalization.
result Constant learning rate to batch size ratio leads to good generalization and almost constant adversarial robustness.
SGD favors flat minima exponentially more than sharp minima in deep learning.
problem Understanding how SGD selects flat minima in deep learning.
method Developed a density diffusion theory (DDT) to analyze minima selection.
result SGD exponentially favors flat minima over sharp minima due to Hessian-dependent noise.
SGDM accelerates faster than SGD with large batch sizes and permits broader learning rates.
problem Understanding the role of momentum in SGDM and its convergence rates.
method Analysis of SGDM convergence rates under strongly convex settings, including finite-sample rates and asymptotic normality of the averaged estimator.
result SGDM converges faster than SGD with large batch sizes and permits broader learning rates.
In Deep Learning, Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) is usually selected as a training method because of its efficiency; however, recently, a problem in SGD gains research interest: sharp minima in Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have poor generalization; especially, large-batch SGD tends to converge to sharp minima. It bec…
New proof shows D-SGD and SAM are equivalent, revealing advantages of decentralization.
problem The generalization benefits of decentralized learning.
method Proved D-SGD implicitly minimizes SAM's loss function.
result Decentralized SGD and Average-direction SAM are asymptotically equivalent.
New SGD algorithm finds critical points faster with second-order corrections.
problem Finding critical points in non-convex optimization efficiently.
method Uses Hessian-vector products to correct momentum bias in SGD.
result Finds ε-critical points in O(ε−3) time. Analysis of SGD+M convergence rates in high dimensions with batch size considerations.
problem Understanding convergence rates of SGD+M in high-dimensional settings.
method Analyzing the dynamics of SGD+M on least squares problems with large batch sizes and dimensions.
result Identifies the implicit conditioning ratio (ICR) that regulates SGD+M's acceleration and convergence rates.
S-SGD adds symmetrical noise to weights to avoid sharp minima in deep learning.
problem SGD does not always converge to a flat minimum, leading to poor generalization.
method Symmetrical weight noise injection in SGD.
result S-SGD outperforms conventional SGD and weight-noise injection methods in large batch training.
Improved analysis shows momentum in SGD reduces batch size needs for non-convex objectives.
problem Reducing batch size requirements for SGD in non-convex optimization.
method Normalized SGD with momentum, adaptive method for small gradient variance.
result Normalized SGD with momentum achieves ε-critical points in O(1/ε3.5) iterations. Momentum affects optimization differently at small vs large batch sizes near instability.
problem Understanding how momentum impacts optimization near the edge of stability.
method Demonstrated through batch-size dependent behavior of SGD with momentum.
result Momentum operates in two distinct regimes: amplifying stochastic fluctuations at small batch sizes and stabilizing at large batch sizes.
Noise enhancement improves generalization in training.
problem Improving generalization in training with controlled noise.
method Noise enhancement method to control SGD noise without changing learning rate or minibatch size.
result Noise enhancement improves generalization for real datasets.
The gradient noise of SGD is considered to play a central role in the observed strong generalization abilities of deep learning. While past studies confirm that the magnitude and the covariance structure of gradient noise are critical for regularization, it remains unclear whether or not the class of noise distribution…
This work improves SGD convergence by adaptively adjusting batch sizes.
problem High variance in gradient estimates with small batch sizes.
method Adaptive batch size adjustment based on model training loss.
result Adaptive batch size method requires fewer model updates with same computation.
Study of SGD with state-dependent noise, improving escape from local minima.
problem Understanding and improving the dynamics of SGD in non-convex optimization.
method Formal study on SGD with state-dependent noise, proposing power-law dynamic with state-dependent diffusion.
result Power-law dynamic can escape from sharp minima exponentially faster than flat minima.
The most straightforward method to accelerate Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) computation is to distribute the randomly selected batch of inputs over multiple processors. To keep the distributed processors fully utilized requires commensurately growing the batch size. However, large batch training often leads to poor…
Large-batch SGD is important for scaling training of deep neural networks. However, without fine-tuning hyperparameter schedules, the generalization of the model may be hampered. We propose to use batch augmentation: replicating instances of samples within the same batch with different data augmentations. Batch augment…
We propose NovoGrad, an adaptive stochastic gradient descent method with layer-wise gradient normalization and decoupled weight decay. In our experiments on neural networks for image classification, speech recognition, machine translation, and language modeling, it performs on par or better than well tuned SGD with mom…
SGD batch size affects autoencoder global minima sparsity and sharpness.
problem Investigating how batch size impacts autoencoder learning.
method Non-convex autoencoder training with SGD, varying batch sizes.
result SGD batch size influences global minimum sparsity and sharpness.
New insights explain speedup saturation in distributed learning with large batches and delays.
problem Understanding and optimizing speedup in distributed learning with large batches and delays.
method Theoretical analysis of strongly convex, convex, and non-convex settings, considering data sparsity.
result Identification of a data-dependent parameter explaining speedup saturation in both batch size and gradient staleness.
Optimal batch size minimizes training time for neural networks.
problem Minimizing training time for two-layer neural networks with SGD.
method Characterized optimal batch size as a function of target hardness (information exponents). Used Correlation loss SGD to overcome limitations.
result Optimal batch size minimizes training time without changing total sample complexity.
Asynchronous decentralized SGD with quantized and local updates converges in gossip model.
problem Scalable distributed machine learning challenges in decentralized optimization.
method Asynchronous decentralized SGD with quantization and local steps in gossip model.
result Decentralized optimization with quantization and local steps converges in asynchronous gossip model.
It has been empirically observed that the flatness of minima obtained from training deep networks seems to correlate with better generalization. However, for deep networks with positively homogeneous activations, most measures of sharpness/flatness are not invariant to rescaling of the network parameters, corresponding…
New method improves uncertainty quantification for large batch sizes and misspecified models.
problem Challenges in tuning algorithms for accurate uncertainty quantification in large batch sizes and misspecified models.
method Proposes new discrete-time approximations to SGD and SGLD, proving error bounds for practical tuning.
result Quantitative, non-asymptotic error bounds for accurate predictions of covariance and autocorrelation time.
Stochastic Gradient Descent phases explained for deep networks.
problem Understanding the different regimes of SGD in deep learning.
method Teacher-student perceptron model, phase diagram analysis.
result SGD phases separated by batch size B∗, scaling with training set size P. It is common practice to decay the learning rate. Here we show one can usually obtain the same learning curve on both training and test sets by instead increasing the batch size during training. This procedure is successful for stochastic gradient descent (SGD), SGD with momentum, Nesterov momentum, and Adam. It reache…
Large batch training improves deep learning performance without needing warmup.
problem Slow convergence at early epochs in large batch training.
method Proposes CLARS algorithm and analyzes convergence rate.
result Proposed algorithm outperforms gradual warmup and state-of-the-art large-batch optimizers.
New insights into optimizing Local SGD's outer optimizer for faster convergence.
problem Understanding the impact of outer optimizer and its hyperparameters in Local SGD.
method Analyzing convergence guarantees with new outer learning rates and momentum.
result Tuning the outer learning rate can improve convergence and handle inner learning rate ill-tuning.
Proposes DC-S3GD for efficient large-scale decentralized neural network training.
problem Training large-scale decentralized neural networks efficiently.
method Decentralized stale-synchronous version of DC-ASGD with gradient correction.
result Achieves state-of-the-art results in training Convolutional Neural Networks.
Distributed training of massive machine learning models, in particular deep neural networks, via Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) is becoming commonplace. Several families of communication-reduction methods, such as quantization, large-batch methods, and gradient sparsification, have been proposed. To date, gradient s…
A new method uses extrapolation to train deep learning models with larger batch sizes.
problem Persistent degradation in performance when increasing batch size for deep learning.
method Proposes extrapolation to stabilize optimization trajectory and improve generalization.
result Demonstrates scaling to larger batch sizes while maintaining or surpassing state-of-the-art accuracy.
Large batch size training of Neural Networks has been shown to incur accuracy loss when trained with the current methods. The exact underlying reasons for this are still not completely understood. Here, we study large batch size training through the lens of the Hessian operator and robust optimization. In particular, w…
This work shows how exploiting gradient alignment can improve distributed and federated learning performance.
problem Misalignment of gradients across clients in distributed and federated learning.
method Utilizing implicit regularization through a novel GradAlign algorithm that induces gradient alignment with large mini-batches.
result Improvements in test accuracies and generalization performance.
Large-batch training approaches have enabled researchers to utilize large-scale distributed processing and greatly accelerate deep-neural net (DNN) training. For example, by scaling the batch size from 256 to 32K, researchers have been able to reduce the training time of ResNet50 on ImageNet from 29 hours to 2.2 minute…
New attack recovers user-level information from large batch images.
problem Recovering private information from user-level gradients in distributed learning.
method Proposes a gradient inversion attack using a denoising diffusion model as a prior.
result Demonstrates recovery of realistic facial images and private attributes.
Standard optimizers perform as well as LARS and LAMB at large batch sizes.
problem Comparing optimizers for neural network training at large batch sizes.
method Used standard optimizers like Nesterov momentum and Adam to match or exceed LARS and LAMB results.
result Standard optimizers can match or exceed LARS and LAMB at large batch sizes.
LSAM optimizes deep learning training with improved efficiency.
problem Inefficiency in distributed large-batch training with Sharpness-Aware Minimization (SAM).
method Integrates SAM's adversarial steps with an asynchronous distributed sampling strategy.
result Higher final accuracy compared to data-parallel SAM.
Generative models enhance BO for large batch optimization.
problem Efficiently sampling solutions in high-dimensional, combinatorial design spaces.
method Train generative models to sample solutions proportional to expected utility.
result Generative models can approximate optimal target distributions under certain conditions.