Related papers: Second-Order Guarantees of Stochastic Gradient Des…
Gradient clipping is a popular modification to standard (stochastic) gradient descent, at every iteration limiting the gradient norm to a certain value $c >0$. It is widely used for example for stabilizing the training of deep learning…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is a popular and efficient method with wide applications in training deep neural nets and other nonconvex models. While the behavior of SGD is well understood in the convex learning setting, the existing…
In this paper, we establish the almost sure convergence of two-timescale stochastic gradient descent algorithms in continuous time under general noise and stability conditions, extending well known results in discrete time. We analyse…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is a prevalent optimization technique for large-scale distributed machine learning. While SGD computation can be efficiently divided between multiple machines, communication typically becomes a bottleneck…
This paper considers the analysis of continuous time gradient-based optimization algorithms through the lens of nonlinear contraction theory. It demonstrates that in the case of a time-invariant objective, most elementary results on…
Recent results suggest that quantum computers possess the potential to speed up nonconvex optimization problems. However, a crucial factor for the implementation of quantum optimization algorithms is their robustness against experimental…
Recent years have seen a flurry of activities in designing provably efficient nonconvex procedures for solving statistical estimation problems. Due to the highly nonconvex nature of the empirical loss, state-of-the-art procedures often…
The paper considers distributed gradient flow (DGF) for multi-agent nonconvex optimization. DGF is a continuous-time approximation of distributed gradient descent that is often easier to study than its discrete-time counterpart. The paper…
Smooth, non-convex optimization problems on Riemannian manifolds occur in machine learning as a result of orthonormality, rank or positivity constraints. First- and second-order necessary optimality conditions state that the Riemannian…
Non-convex optimization problems are challenging to solve; the success and computational expense of a gradient descent algorithm or variant depend heavily on the initialization strategy. Often, either random initialization is used or…
It seems that in the current age, computers, computation, and data have an increasingly important role to play in scientific research and discovery. This is reflected in part by the rise of machine learning and artificial intelligence,…
Recent progress in robust statistical learning has mainly tackled convex problems, like mean estimation or linear regression, with non-convex challenges receiving less attention. Phase retrieval exemplifies such a non-convex problem,…
Gradient clipping has long been considered essential for ensuring the convergence of Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) in the presence of heavy-tailed gradient noise. In this paper, we revisit this belief and explore whether gradient…
Local search heuristics for non-convex optimizations are popular in applied machine learning. However, in general it is hard to guarantee that such algorithms even converge to a local minimum, due to the existence of complicated saddle…
Selecting an effective step-size is a fundamental challenge in first-order optimization, especially for problems with non-Euclidean geometries. This paper presents a novel adaptive step-size strategy for optimization algorithms that rely on…
In this work, we describe a generic approach to show convergence with high probability for both stochastic convex and non-convex optimization with sub-Gaussian noise. In previous works for convex optimization, either the convergence is only…
Extrapolation is a well-known technique for solving convex optimization and variational inequalities and recently attracts some attention for non-convex optimization. Several recent works have empirically shown its success in some machine…
Large-scale optimization problems require algorithms both effective and efficient. One such popular and proven algorithm is Stochastic Gradient Descent which uses first-order gradient information to solve these problems. This paper studies…
Modern machine learning algorithms aim to extract fine-grained information from data to provide accurate predictions, which often conflicts with the goal of privacy protection. This paper addresses the practical and theoretical importance…
Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) is a cornerstone of large-scale optimization, yet its theoretical behavior under heavy-tailed noise -- common in modern machine learning and reinforcement learning -- remains poorly understood. In this…