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We design an algorithm which finds an $\epsilon$-approximate stationary point (with $\|\nabla F(x)\|\le \epsilon$) using $O(\epsilon^{-3})$ stochastic gradient and Hessian-vector products, matching guarantees that were previously available…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-06-25 Yossi Arjevani , Yair Carmon , John C. Duchi , Dylan J. Foster , Ayush Sekhari , Karthik Sridharan

We study the query complexity of min-max optimization of a nonconvex-nonconcave function $f$ over $[0,1]^d \times [0,1]^d$. We show that, given oracle access to $f$ and to its gradient $\nabla f$, any algorithm that finds an…

Data Structures and Algorithms · Computer Science 2026-05-14 Martino Bernasconi , Matteo Castiglioni , Andrea Celli , Alexandros Hollender

Minimizing a convex, quadratic objective of the form $f_{\mathbf{A},\mathbf{b}}(x) := \frac{1}{2}x^\top \mathbf{A} x - \langle \mathbf{b}, x \rangle$ for $\mathbf{A} \succ 0 $ is a fundamental problem in machine learning and optimization.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-04-17 Max Simchowitz

Many recent studies on first-order methods (FOMs) focus on \emph{composite non-convex non-smooth} optimization with linear and/or nonlinear function constraints. Upper (or worst-case) complexity bounds have been established for these…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-05-14 Wei Liu , Qihang Lin , Yangyang Xu

We consider a broad class of first-order optimization algorithms which are \emph{oblivious}, in the sense that their step sizes are scheduled regardless of the function under consideration, except for limited side-information such as…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2016-05-12 Yossi Arjevani , Ohad Shamir

We prove a \emph{query complexity} lower bound on rank-one principal component analysis (PCA). We consider an oracle model where, given a symmetric matrix $M \in \mathbb{R}^{d \times d}$, an algorithm is allowed to make $T$ \emph{exact}…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-04-18 Max Simchowitz , Ahmed El Alaoui , Benjamin Recht

We study a class of bilevel optimization problems in which both the upper- and lower-level problems have minimax structures. This setting captures a broad range of emerging applications. Despite the extensive literature on bilevel…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-11 Yiyang Shen , Yutian He , Weiran Wang , Qihang Lin

We provide tight upper and lower bounds on the complexity of minimizing the average of $m$ convex functions using gradient and prox oracles of the component functions. We show a significant gap between the complexity of deterministic vs…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-04-05 Blake Woodworth , Nathan Srebro

An adaptive regularization algorithm using inexact function and derivatives evaluations is proposed for the solution of composite nonsmooth nonconvex optimization. It is shown that this algorithm needs at most…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-02-28 S. Gratton , E. Simon , Ph. L. Toint

We give nearly matching upper and lower bounds on the oracle complexity of finding $\epsilon$-stationary points ($\| \nabla F(x) \| \leq\epsilon$) in stochastic convex optimization. We jointly analyze the oracle complexity in both the local…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-02-15 Dylan J. Foster , Ayush Sekhari , Ohad Shamir , Nathan Srebro , Karthik Sridharan , Blake Woodworth

The use of min-max optimization in adversarial training of deep neural network classifiers and training of generative adversarial networks has motivated the study of nonconvex-nonconcave optimization objectives, which frequently arise in…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-03-02 Jelena Diakonikolas , Constantinos Daskalakis , Michael I. Jordan

In this paper, we establish lower bounds for the oracle complexity of the first-order methods minimizing regularized convex functions. We consider the composite representation of the objective. The smooth part has H\"older continuous…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-02-10 Nikita Doikov

Analysis of Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) and its variants typically relies on the assumption of uniformly bounded variance, a condition that frequently fails in practical non-convex settings, such as neural network training, as well as…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-21 Arda Fazla , Ege C. Kaya , Antesh Upadhyay , Abolfazl Hashemi

In this paper, we study the lower iteration complexity bounds for finding the saddle point of a strongly convex and strongly concave saddle point problem: $\min_x\max_yF(x,y)$. We restrict the classes of algorithms in our investigation to…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-06-22 Junyu Zhang , Mingyi Hong , Shuzhong Zhang

This paper develops negative curvature methods for continuous nonlinear unconstrained optimization in stochastic settings, in which function, gradient, and Hessian information is available only through probabilistic oracles, i.e., oracles…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-05 Albert S. Berahas , Raghu Bollapragada , Wanping Dong

We study the complexity of optimizing highly smooth convex functions. For a positive integer $p$, we want to find an $\epsilon$-approximate minimum of a convex function $f$, given oracle access to the function and its first $p$ derivatives,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-12-06 Ankit Garg , Robin Kothari , Praneeth Netrapalli , Suhail Sherif

It is well-known that given a smooth, bounded-from-below, and possibly nonconvex function, standard gradient-based methods can find $\epsilon$-stationary points (with gradient norm less than $\epsilon$) in $\mathcal{O}(1/\epsilon^2)$…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-10-28 Guy Kornowski , Ohad Shamir

In this paper, we study the lower complexity bounds for finite-sum optimization problems, where the objective is the average of $n$ individual component functions. We consider Proximal Incremental First-order (PIFO) algorithms which have…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-01-09 Yuze Han , Guangzeng Xie , Zhihua Zhang

In this paper, we study zeroth-order algorithms for minimax optimization problems that are nonconvex in one variable and strongly-concave in the other variable. Such minimax optimization problems have attracted significant attention lately…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-04-06 Zhongruo Wang , Krishnakumar Balasubramanian , Shiqian Ma , Meisam Razaviyayn

Quantum algorithms for optimization problems are of general interest. Despite recent progress in classical lower bounds for nonconvex optimization under different settings and quantum lower bounds for convex optimization, quantum lower…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2023-06-06 Chenyi Zhang , Tongyang Li