English

An algorithm for the principal component analysis of large data sets

Computation 2011-12-23 v2 Numerical Analysis

Abstract

Recently popularized randomized methods for principal component analysis (PCA) efficiently and reliably produce nearly optimal accuracy --- even on parallel processors --- unlike the classical (deterministic) alternatives. We adapt one of these randomized methods for use with data sets that are too large to be stored in random-access memory (RAM). (The traditional terminology is that our procedure works efficiently "out-of-core.") We illustrate the performance of the algorithm via several numerical examples. For example, we report on the PCA of a data set stored on disk that is so large that less than a hundredth of it can fit in our computer's RAM.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1007.5510,
  title  = {An algorithm for the principal component analysis of large data sets},
  author = {Nathan Halko and Per-Gunnar Martinsson and Yoel Shkolnisky and Mark Tygert},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1007.5510},
  year   = {2011}
}

Comments

17 pages, 3 figures (each with 2 or 3 subfigures), 2 tables (each with 2 subtables)

R2 v1 2026-06-21T15:55:17.068Z