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At initialization, artificial neural networks (ANNs) are equivalent to Gaussian processes in the infinite-width limit, thus connecting them to kernel methods. We prove that the evolution of an ANN during training can also be described by a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-02-11 Arthur Jacot , Franck Gabriel , Clément Hongler

A primary advantage of neural networks lies in their feature learning characteristics, which is challenging to theoretically analyze due to the complexity of their training dynamics. We propose a new paradigm for studying feature learning…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-30 Haobo Zhang , Jianfa Lai , Yicheng Li , Qian Lin , Jun S. Liu

Given the complexity of genetic risk prediction, there is a critical need for the development of novel methodologies that can effectively capture intricate genotype--phenotype relationships (e.g., nonlinear) while remaining statistically…

Applications · Statistics 2025-10-03 Heng Ge , Qing Lu

Motivated by both theory and practice, we study how random pruning of the weights affects a neural network's neural tangent kernel (NTK). In particular, this work establishes an equivalence of the NTKs between a fully-connected neural…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-21 Hongru Yang , Zhangyang Wang

The Neural Tangent Kernel (NTK) offers a powerful tool to study the functional dynamics of neural networks. In the so-called lazy, or kernel regime, the NTK remains static during training and the network function is linear in the static…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-28 Yuzhi Liu , Zixuan Chen , Zirui Zhang , Yufei Liu , Giulia Lanzillotta

In wide neural networks, the Neural Tangent Kernel (NTK) remains approximately constant during training, providing a powerful theoretical tool for studying training dynamics, generalization, and connections to kernel methods. However, this…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-26 Jonathan Plenk , Sergio Calvo-Ordonez , Alvaro Cartea , Yarin Gal , Mark van der Wilk , Kamil Ciosek

The Neural Tangent Kernel (NTK) framework explains optimization in over-parameterized neural networks via approximately linearized dynamics, yielding exponential convergence guarantees. However, existing results are often overly pessimistic…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-26 Ruchirinkil Marreddy , Chaoyue Liu

The training dynamics and generalization properties of neural networks (NN) can be precisely characterized in function space via the neural tangent kernel (NTK). Structural changes to the NTK during training reflect feature learning and…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-02-11 Haozhe Shan , Blake Bordelon

The Neural Tangent Kernel (NTK) characterizes the behavior of infinitely wide neural nets trained under least squares loss by gradient descent. However, despite its importance, the super-quadratic runtime of kernel methods limits the use of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-07-28 Amir Zandieh

A recent breakthrough in deep learning theory shows that the training of over-parameterized deep neural networks can be characterized by a kernel function called \textit{neural tangent kernel} (NTK). However, it is known that this type of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-07 Zixiang Chen , Yuan Cao , Quanquan Gu , Tong Zhang

A rising trend in theoretical deep learning is to understand why deep learning works through Neural Tangent Kernel (NTK) [jgh18], a kernel method that is equivalent to using gradient descent to train a multi-layer infinitely-wide neural…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-09-15 Lianke Qin , Zhao Song , Baocheng Sun

Neural tangent kernels (NTKs) provide a theoretical regime to analyze the learning and generalization behavior of over-parametrized neural networks. For a supervised learning task, the association between the eigenvectors of the NTK kernel…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-18 Shervin Khalafi , Saurabh Sihag , Alejandro Ribeiro

The Neural Tangent Kernel (NTK) characterizes the behavior of infinitely-wide neural networks trained under least squares loss by gradient descent. Recent works also report that NTK regression can outperform finitely-wide neural networks…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-12-09 Amir Zandieh , Insu Han , Haim Avron , Neta Shoham , Chaewon Kim , Jinwoo Shin

Two key challenges facing modern deep learning are mitigating deep networks' vulnerability to adversarial attacks and understanding deep learning's generalization capabilities. Towards the first issue, many defense strategies have been…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-24 Noel Loo , Ramin Hasani , Alexander Amini , Daniela Rus

The performance of the data-dependent neural tangent kernel (NTK; Jacot et al. (2018)) associated with a trained deep neural network (DNN) often matches or exceeds that of the full network. This implies that DNN training via gradient…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-22 Johannes Schwab , Bryan Kelly , Semyon Malamud , Teng Andrea Xu

Recent theoretical work has established connections between over-parametrized neural networks and linearized models governed by he Neural Tangent Kernels (NTKs). NTK theory leads to concrete convergence and generalization results, yet the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-02-18 Yu Bai , Jason D. Lee

Empirical neural tangent kernels (eNTKs) can provide a good understanding of a given network's representation: they are often far less expensive to compute and applicable more broadly than infinite width NTKs. For networks with O output…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-06-08 Mohamad Amin Mohamadi , Wonho Bae , Danica J. Sutherland

The Neural Tangent Kernel (NTK) framework has provided deep insights into the training dynamics of neural networks under gradient flow. However, it relies on the assumption that the network is differentiable with respect to its parameters,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-17 Sriram Nagaraj , Vishakh Hari

We prove the precise scaling, at finite depth and width, for the mean and variance of the neural tangent kernel (NTK) in a randomly initialized ReLU network. The standard deviation is exponential in the ratio of network depth to width.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-09-16 Boris Hanin , Mihai Nica

The study of Neural Tangent Kernels (NTKs) has provided much needed insight into convergence and generalization properties of neural networks in the over-parametrized (wide) limit by approximating the network using a first-order Taylor…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-02-02 Alistair Shilton , Sunil Gupta , Santu Rana , Svetha Venkatesh