Near-Constant-Time Distributed Algorithms on a Congested Clique

This paper presents constant-time and near-constant-time distributed algorithms for a variety of problems in the congested clique model. We show how to compute a 3-ruling set in expected $O(\log \log \log n)$ rounds and using this, we obtain a constant-approximation to metric facility location, also in expected $O(\log \log \log n)$ rounds. In addition, assuming an input metric space of constant doubling dimension, we obtain constant-round algorithms to compute constant-factor approximations to the minimum spanning tree and the metric facility location problems. These results significantly improve on the running time of the fastest known algorithms for these problems in the congested clique setting.