English

Squareplus: A Softplus-Like Algebraic Rectifier

Machine Learning 2021-12-23 v1 Neural and Evolutionary Computing

Abstract

We present squareplus, an activation function that resembles softplus, but which can be computed using only algebraic operations: addition, multiplication, and square-root. Because squareplus is ~6x faster to evaluate than softplus on a CPU and does not require access to transcendental functions, it may have practical value in resource-limited deep learning applications.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2112.11687,
  title  = {Squareplus: A Softplus-Like Algebraic Rectifier},
  author = {Jonathan T. Barron},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2112.11687},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

https://github.com/jonbarron/squareplus

R2 v1 2026-06-24T08:27:23.385Z