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This paper considers the decentralized convex optimization problem, which has a wide range of applications in large-scale machine learning, sensor networks, and control theory. We propose novel algorithms that achieve optimal computation…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-11 Haishan Ye , Luo Luo , Ziang Zhou , Tong Zhang

We study non-convex subgradient flows for training two-layer ReLU neural networks from a convex geometry and duality perspective. We characterize the implicit bias of unregularized non-convex gradient flow as convex regularization of an…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-14 Yifei Wang , Mert Pilanci

Finding parameters in a deep neural network (NN) that fit training data is a nonconvex optimization problem, but a basic first-order optimization method (gradient descent) finds a global optimizer with perfect fit (zero-loss) in many…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-07 Zhiyan Ding , Shi Chen , Qin Li , Stephen Wright

The optimization problem behind neural networks is highly non-convex. Training with stochastic gradient descent and variants requires careful parameter tuning and provides no guarantee to achieve the global optimum. In contrast we show…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2016-10-31 Antoine Gautier , Quynh Nguyen , Matthias Hein

Natural gradient descent is a principled method for adapting the parameters of a statistical model on-line using an underlying Riemannian parameter space to redefine the direction of steepest descent. The algorithm is examined via methods…

Disordered Systems and Neural Networks · Physics 2009-10-31 Magnus Rattray , David Saad

Gradient descent finds a global minimum in training deep neural networks despite the objective function being non-convex. The current paper proves gradient descent achieves zero training loss in polynomial time for a deep over-parameterized…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-05-30 Simon S. Du , Jason D. Lee , Haochuan Li , Liwei Wang , Xiyu Zhai

We study the implicit regularization imposed by gradient descent for learning multi-layer homogeneous functions including feed-forward fully connected and convolutional deep neural networks with linear, ReLU or Leaky ReLU activation. We…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-11-01 Simon S. Du , Wei Hu , Jason D. Lee

In this paper, we study the implicit regularization of the gradient descent algorithm in homogeneous neural networks, including fully-connected and convolutional neural networks with ReLU or LeakyReLU activations. In particular, we study…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-01-01 Kaifeng Lyu , Jian Li

Bilevel optimization has been developed for many machine learning tasks with large-scale and high-dimensional data. This paper considers a constrained bilevel optimization problem, where the lower-level optimization problem is convex with…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-22 Siyuan Xu , Minghui Zhu

Neural networks with a large number of parameters admit a mean-field description, which has recently served as a theoretical explanation for the favorable training properties of "overparameterized" models. In this regime, gradient descent…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2019-03-28 Grant Rotskoff , Samy Jelassi , Joan Bruna , Eric Vanden-Eijnden

Gradient-based iterative optimization methods are the workhorse of modern machine learning. They crucially rely on careful tuning of parameters like learning rate and momentum. However, one typically sets them using heuristic approaches…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-05 Dravyansh Sharma

Training neural networks is a challenging non-convex optimization problem, and backpropagation or gradient descent can get stuck in spurious local optima. We propose a novel algorithm based on tensor decomposition for guaranteed training of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2016-01-13 Majid Janzamin , Hanie Sedghi , Anima Anandkumar

We examine the infinite-dimensional optimization problem of finding a decomposition of a probability measure into K probability sub-measures to minimize specific loss functions inspired by applications in clustering and user grouping. We…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-06-04 Jiangze Han , Christopher Thomas Ryan , Xin T. Tong

For strongly convex objectives that are smooth, the classical theory of gradient descent ensures linear convergence relative to the number of gradient evaluations. An analogous nonsmooth theory is challenging. Even when the objective is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-01-19 X. Y. Han , Adrian S. Lewis

Wasserstein gradient flows are continuous time dynamics that define curves of steepest descent to minimize an objective function over the space of probability measures (i.e., the Wasserstein space). This objective is typically a divergence…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-02-23 Adil Salim , Anna Korba , Giulia Luise

One of the most popular approaches for solving total variation-regularized optimization problems in the space of measures are Particle Gradient Flows (PGFs). These restrict the problem to linear combinations of Dirac deltas and then perform…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-31 Christian Amend , Marcello Carioni , Konstantinos Zemas

When optimizing over-parameterized models, such as deep neural networks, a large set of parameters can achieve zero training error. In such cases, the choice of the optimization algorithm and its respective hyper-parameters introduces…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-12-06 Gauthier Gidel , Francis Bach , Simon Lacoste-Julien

Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) are powerful tools for addressing learning problems on graph structures, with a wide range of applications in molecular biology and social networks. However, the theoretical foundations underlying their…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-01-27 Dhiraj Patel , Anton Savostianov , Michael T. Schaub

We revisit the problem of learning a single neuron with ReLU activation under Gaussian input with square loss. We particularly focus on the over-parameterization setting where the student network has $n\ge 2$ neurons. We prove the global…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-11 Weihang Xu , Simon S. Du

We prove linear convergence of gradient descent to a global optimum for the training of deep residual networks with constant layer width and smooth activation function. We show that if the trained weights, as a function of the layer index,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-01-26 Rama Cont , Alain Rossier , RenYuan Xu