Optimal learning rate schedules derived for various tasks.
problem Inadequate learning rate schedules in practice compared to theory.
method Refined analysis of learning rate schedules for optimization algorithms.
result Derives new problem-adaptive learning rate schedules.
The paper presents a multi-power law for predicting loss curves across different learning rate schedules.
problem Understanding and optimizing the relationship between model performance and hyperparameters, especially learning rates.
method Proposes a multi-power law that combines power laws based on the sum of learning rates and additional laws for loss reduction due to decay.
result The multi-power law accurately predicts loss curves for unseen learning rate schedules and finds a schedule that outperforms cosine learning rate.
Optimal learning rate schedules for SGD in changing data distributions.
problem Minimizing regret in online learning with changing data distributions.
method Characterized optimal schedules for linear regression, proposed schedules for general convex and non-convex losses, and defined a notion of regret for non-convex losses.
result Upper and lower bounds for regret with constants for convex losses, and an upper bound on total expected regret for non-convex losses.
Learning-rate schedules for large models match optimization theory closely, leading to better training.
problem Improving training of large models with optimal learning rates.
method Used a bound from non-smooth convex optimization theory to match learning-rate schedules with practical benefits.
result Extending the learning-rate schedule with optimal learning-rate and transferring it across schedules improves model training.
ScheduleFree+ improves large language model training without schedules or learning rates.
problem Scaling up Schedule-Free Learning to large language models.
method Learning-rate-free and schedule-free method for training large language models.
result ScheduleFree+ outperforms SOTA schedules by 31% at 1000 tokens per parameter.
New method schedules learning rate without stopping time, outperforming existing methods.
problem Learning rate schedules that require stopping time are outperformed.
method Schedule-Free approach that avoids stopping time and introduces no additional hyper-parameters.
result Exhibits state-of-the-art performance across various problems.
We improve private training accuracy with learning rate schedules and matrix factorizations.
problem Private training with learning rate schedules and correlated noise.
method General upper and lower bounds for learning rate schedules, memory-efficient constructions, and schedule-aware factorizations.
result Schedule-aware factorizations improve accuracy in private training.
The study introduces anytime learning schedules for large language models without fixed horizons.
problem Training large language models without knowing the total training horizon.
method Theoretical analysis and weight averaging to create anytime learning schedules.
result Theoretical and empirical evidence shows that weight averaging with simple step sizes can achieve comparable final loss to well-tuned cosine schedules.
Fractal learning rate schedules accelerate vanilla gradient descent.
problem Difficulty in tuning learning rates in iterative optimization.
method Introduce Chebyshev learning rate schedule for gradient descent.
result Locally unstable updates can lead to convergence in deep learning.
WSqD extends learning rate schedules for large model training without fixed horizons.
problem Fixed learning rate schedules limit training horizon extension.
method WSqD replaces constant stable phase with a shifted inverse-square-root base, retaining linear cooldown.
result WSqD achieves minimax-optimal convergence rate and horizon-independence.
The learning rate is one of the most important hyper-parameters for model training and generalization. However, current hand-designed parametric learning rate schedules offer limited flexibility and the predefined schedule may not match the training dynamics of high dimensional and non-convex optimization problems. In …
We study the problem of fitting task-specific learning rate schedules from the perspective of hyperparameter optimization, aiming at good generalization. We describe the structure of the gradient of a validation error w.r.t. the learning rate schedule -- the hypergradient. Based on this, we introduce MARTHE, a novel on…
Momentum is a widely used technique for gradient-based optimizers in deep learning. In this paper, we propose a decaying momentum (\textsc{Demon}) rule. We conduct the first large-scale empirical analysis of momentum decay methods for modern neural network optimization, in addition to the most popular learning rate dec…
Paper finds wide minima are better for generalization and proposes a new learning rate schedule.
problem The challenge of finding optimal learning rates for model training.
method The paper introduces a new hypothesis about the density of wide minima and designs an explore-exploit learning rate schedule.
result The explore-exploit learning rate schedule improves model performance and reduces training time.
A new dynamic learning-rate scheme for optimization.
problem Manual tuning of learning rates in optimization is time-consuming and error-prone.
method Locally optimal stepsize estimation for dynamic learning-rate scheduling.
result Our method achieves comparable performance with minimal tuning.
We find optimal learning rate schedules for a random feature model.
problem Choosing optimal learning rates for deep learning models.
method We analyze a powerlaw random feature model trained with SGD, considering optimal schedules as numerical and analytical problems.
result We discover two regimes: easy and hard phases, with different optimal learning rate schedules.
MLR-SNet learns flexible LR schedules for diverse tasks.
problem Adapting LR schedules for non-convex optimization problems.
method Parameterizes LR schedules with an explicit mapping formulation.
result Meta-learned LR schedules are transferable and adaptable.
Two distinct phases of deep learning training improve model generalization.
problem Optimization and generalization in deep learning models.
method Isolating two phases of training: large-step and small-step, and tailoring training algorithms to each.
result Training algorithms optimized for each phase significantly simplify learning rate schedules.
Seesaw optimizes training by balancing learning rate and batch size, accelerating model pretraining.
problem Optimizing training efficiency for large language models with adaptive optimizers.
method Develops a principled framework for batch-size scheduling, introducing Seesaw which multiplies learning rate by 1/√2 and doubles batch size.
result Empirically, Seesaw reduces wall-clock time by approximately 36% compared to cosine decay, matching theoretical limits.
New adaptive scheduler improves SAM for better model training.
problem Training machine learning models requires selecting a learning rate, which is often difficult and time-consuming.
method Derive Polyak schedulers tailored to SAM-style updates, proving linear convergence for strongly convex objectives and an O(1/T) rate for convex objectives.
result Polyak schedulers achieve comparable or better performance than tuned SAM baselines, reducing the need for learning-rate tuning.
Auto-Ensemble automates deep learning model ensembling with adaptive learning rate scheduling.
problem Difficulty in collecting diverse and accurate deep learning models through single training.
method Auto-Ensemble collects model checkpoints and uses adaptive learning rate scheduling to ensemble them.
result Ensembled models converge to various local optima, improving performance on few-shot learning.
GOLS-I automatically determines learning rates for various neural network training algorithms.
problem Adapting learning rates in stochastic training algorithms for neural networks.
method Gradient-Only Line Search (GOLS-I) for automatically setting learning rates.
result GOLS-I learning rate schedules are competitive with manually tuned rates across multiple algorithms, architectures, datasets, and loss functions.
We discover scaling laws for kernel regression loss under various learning rate schedules.
problem Understanding loss dynamics and learning rate schedules in kernel regression.
method Theoretical analysis of stochastic gradient descent on a power-law kernel regression model.
result Established a Functional Scaling Law (FSL) capturing the full loss trajectory under arbitrary learning rate schedules.
New optimizer SF-NorMuon matches tuned AdamW across various horizons.
problem Fixed learning-rate schedules in neural network training lead to strong path dependence and costly re-tuning.
method Schedule-Free Spectral Optimization (SF-NorMuon)
result SF-NorMuon outperforms tuned AdamW on 125M and 772M parameter models across different horizons.
Analyzes optimal learning rate schedules in high-dimensional non-convex optimization problems.
problem Optimizing high-dimensional non-convex loss landscapes.
method Langevin optimization with learning rate decaying as \(η(t) = t^{-β}\).
result To speed up optimization without getting stuck in saddles, a decay rate \(β < 1\) is optimal, contrary to convex setups where \(β = 1\).
Optimal learning rates decay to zero in easy tasks and maintain a warmup phase in hard tasks.
problem Optimizing learning rates under functional scaling laws for model training.
method Deriving optimal learning-rate schedules based on exponents s and β. result Sharp phase transition between easy and hard tasks, with different decay behaviors.
SALR improves deep learning generalization by dynamically adjusting learning rates.
problem Improving generalization in deep learning models.
method Sharpness-aware learning rate scheduling based on local loss function sharpness.
result SALR drives solutions to flatter regions, improving generalization and convergence.
Intriguing empirical evidence exists that deep learning can work well with exoticschedules for varying the learning rate. This paper suggests that the phenomenon may be due to Batch Normalization or BN, which is ubiquitous and provides benefits in optimization and generalization across all standard architectures. The f…
Learning rate annealing improves robustness in stochastic optimization.
problem Tuning learning rates in large-scale models is costly and prone to errors.
method We analyze and demonstrate the benefits of learning rate annealing schemes.
result Stochastic gradient descent with annealed schedules converges more robustly to the optimal solution.
Bayesian optimisation for dynamically adjusting learning rates in machine learning models.
problem Dynamic adjustment of learning rates schedules in machine learning models.
method Probabilistic model based on latent Gaussian processes and auto-/regressive formulation.
result Flexibly adjusts learning rates schedules to abrupt changes of behaviours.
To train neural machine translation models simultaneously on multiple tasks (languages), it is common to sample each task uniformly or in proportion to dataset sizes. As these methods offer little control over performance trade-offs, we explore different task scheduling approaches. We first consider existing non-adapti…
SALSA automatically adjusts learning rates in stochastic gradient methods.
problem Automatic adjustment of learning rates in stochastic gradient methods.
method SALSA uses a line-search procedure to gradually increase the learning rate, then a statistical test to decrease it.
result SALSA matches the performance of best hand-tuned learning rate schedules in deep learning tasks.
New insights into using momentum for non-convex optimization.
problem Improving training of non-convex models like deep neural networks.
method Developed a Lyapunov analysis of SGD with momentum using stochastic primal averaging.
result Precise conditions under which SGD+M outperforms SGD and optimal hyper-parameter schedules.
Study separates learning rate effects from adaptive gradient methods.
problem Understanding the impact of learning rates on neural network training.
method Introduced a 'grafting' experiment to isolate learning rate effects.
result Many existing beliefs about adaptive gradient methods may be incorrect.
Most optimizers including stochastic gradient descent (SGD) and its adaptive gradient derivatives face the same problem where an effective learning rate during the training is vastly different. A learning rate scheduling, mostly tuned by hand, is usually employed in practice. In this paper, we propose CProp, a gradient…
GALA adapts learning rates online by aligning gradients, improving deep learning model performance.
problem Fine-tuning learning rates for deep learning models requires extensive grid search.
method GALA dynamically adjusts learning rates by tracking gradient alignment and local curvature.
result GALA produces a flexible, adaptive learning rate schedule that increases when gradients align.
Study finds optimal learning rate schedules for sub-100M quantization-aware training across bit-widths.
problem Optimal learning rate schedules for quantization-aware training depend on bit-width.
method Factorial grid testing over bit-width, warmdown fraction, LR magnitude, model size, and seed.
result INT6 QAT requires a different schedule than higher-precision training, falsifying the primary hypothesis.
Step sizes in neural network training are largely determined using predetermined rules such as fixed learning rates and learning rate schedules. These require user input or expensive global optimization strategies to determine their functional form and associated hyperparameters. Line searches are capable of adaptively…
AdaS adapts SGD learning rate based on knowledge gain metrics.
problem Empirical step-size selection in SGD optimization lacks consistency and insight.
method Introduces AdaS algorithm that adapts SGD learning rate based on knowledge gain metrics.
result AdaS outperforms existing adaptive learning methods in convergence and generalization.
We investigate the dynamical and convergent properties of stochastic gradient descent (SGD) applied to Deep Neural Networks (DNNs). Characterizing the relation between learning rate, batch size and the properties of the final minima, such as width or generalization, remains an open question. In order to tackle this pro…
Scheduling and power allocation improve federated learning efficiency in NOMA networks.
problem Efficiently scheduling and allocating power for federated learning in bandwidth-limited wireless networks.
method Proposed a scheduling policy and power allocation scheme using NOMA to maximize data rate and convergence speed.
result Simulation results show improved federated learning accuracy in NOMA networks.
Warm-up improves training by adapting learning rate based on curvature.
problem Improving training efficiency in deep learning models.
method Introducing a curvature condition to explain warm-up, and showing empirically that it leads to faster convergence.
result Adapting learning rate based on curvature condition naturally induces warm-up-like schedule, leading to faster convergence.
Adaptive optimization algorithms such as Adam are widely used in deep learning. The stability of such algorithms is often improved with a warmup schedule for the learning rate. Motivated by the difficulty of choosing and tuning warmup schedules, recent work proposes automatic variance rectification of Adam's adaptive l…
New framework reveals thermodynamic principles for LLM training.
problem Understanding the training dynamics of large language models.
method Introducing Neural Thermodynamic Laws (NTL) under river-valley loss landscape assumptions.
result Key thermodynamic quantities and principles naturally emerge in LLM training.
AdaLoss optimizes adaptive learning rates for efficient convergence in various models.
problem Efficiently optimizing adaptive learning rates for gradient descent methods.
method AdaLoss uses loss function information to dynamically adjust step sizes.
result AdaLoss achieves linear convergence in linear regression and robust global convergence in neural networks.
WSD schedule improves model training efficiency by adapting learning rates dynamically.
problem Fixed compute budgets limit training efficiency of language models.
method Introduces a WSD schedule that uses a constant learning rate followed by a rapid decay phase.
result WSD schedule generates a non-traditional loss curve with stable and decay phases.
Study examines how data augmentation impacts optimization in linear regression.
problem Understanding how data augmentation schedules affect optimization in linear regression.
method Analyzed the effect of augmentation on optimization in linear regression with MSE loss, using classical convex optimization and recent work on implicit bias.
result Proved that under certain joint schedules for learning rate and augmentation scheme, augmented gradient descent converges and characterized the resulting minimum.
Minimax optimal convergence rates for classes of stochastic convex optimization problems are well characterized, where the majority of results utilize iterate averaged stochastic gradient descent (SGD) with polynomially decaying step sizes. In contrast, SGD's final iterate behavior has received much less attention desp…