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Lower-bound analyses for nonconvex strongly-concave minimax optimization problems have shown that stochastic first-order algorithms require at least $\mathcal{O}(\varepsilon^{-4})$ oracle complexity to find an $\varepsilon$-stationary…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-15 Haoyuan Cai , Sulaiman A. Alghunaim , Ali H. Sayed

We consider the problem of minimizing a convex function over the intersection of finitely many simple sets which are easy to project onto. This is an important problem arising in various domains such as machine learning. The main difficulty…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2017-10-19 Achintya Kundu , Francis Bach , Chiranjib Bhattacharyya

In this paper, we study the fundamental open question of finding the optimal high-order algorithm for solving smooth convex minimization problems. Arjevani et al. (2019) established the lower bound $\Omega\left(\epsilon^{-2/(3p+1)}\right)$…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-05-20 Dmitry Kovalev , Alexander Gasnikov

In this paper, we study a class of stochastic and finite-sum convex optimization problems with deterministic constraints. Existing methods typically aim to find an $\epsilon$-$expectedly\ feasible\ stochastic\ optimal$ solution, in which…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-06-26 Zhaosong Lu , Yifeng Xiao

In this paper, we study a class of bilevel optimization program (BP), where the feasible set of the lower level program is independent of the upper level variable. For bilevel programs it is known that the first order approach requires the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-27 Kuang Bai , Wei Yao , Jane J. Ye , Jin Zhang

(Stochastic) bilevel optimization is a frequently encountered problem in machine learning with a wide range of applications such as meta-learning, hyper-parameter optimization, and reinforcement learning. Most of the existing studies on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-16 Meng Ding , Mingxi Lei , Yunwen Lei , Di Wang , Jinhui Xu

Nonconvex and nonsmooth bi-level optimization poses critical theoretical challenges, while arising in several applications. In this work, we develop a method for nonconvex, nonsmooth bi-level optimization and introduce Binno, a first-order…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-05 Laura Selicato , Flavia Esposito , Andersen Ang

When faced with multiple minima of an "inner-level" convex optimization problem, the convex bilevel optimization problem selects an optimal solution which also minimizes an auxiliary "outer-level" convex objective of interest. Bilevel…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-10-10 Khanh-Hung Giang-Tran , Nam Ho-Nguyen , Dabeen Lee

We consider the problem of finding stationary points in Bilevel optimization when the lower-level problem is unconstrained and strongly convex. The problem has been extensively studied in recent years; the main technical challenge is to…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-02-13 Jeongyeol Kwon , Dohyun Kwon , Hanbaek Lyu

In this work, we introduce new direct search schemes for the solution of bilevel optimization (BO) problems. Our methods rely on a fixed accuracy black box oracle for the lower-level problem, and deal both with smooth and potentially…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-09-14 Youssef Diouane , Vyacheslav Kungurtsev , Francesco Rinaldi , Damiano Zeffiro

We consider the fundamental problem in non-convex optimization of efficiently reaching a stationary point. In contrast to the convex case, in the long history of this basic problem, the only known theoretical results on first-order…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2016-08-26 Zeyuan Allen-Zhu , Elad Hazan

Stochastic bilevel optimization (SBO) has been integrated into many machine learning paradigms recently, including hyperparameter optimization, meta learning, and reinforcement learning. Along with the wide range of applications, there have…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-07 Xuelin Zhang , Hong Chen , Bin Gu , Tieliang Gong , Feng Zheng

We consider stochastic unconstrained bilevel optimization problems when only the first-order gradient oracles are available. While numerous optimization methods have been proposed for tackling bilevel problems, existing methods either tend…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-01-27 Jeongyeol Kwon , Dohyun Kwon , Stephen Wright , Robert Nowak

In this paper, we explore a broad class of constrained saddle point problems with a bilevel structure, wherein the upper-level objective function is nonconvex-concave and smooth over compact and convex constraint sets, subject to a strongly…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-03-31 Mohammad Mahdi Ahmadi , Erfan Yazdandoost Hamedani

This paper studies a class of simple bilevel optimization problems where we minimize a composite convex function at the upper-level subject to a composite convex lower-level problem. Existing methods either provide asymptotic guarantees for…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-03-06 Jiulin Wang , Xu Shi , Rujun Jiang

Necessary conditions for high-order optimality in smooth nonlinear constrained optimization are explored and their inherent intricacy discussed. A two-phase minimization algorithm is proposed which can achieve approximate first-, second-…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-05-31 C. Cartis , N. I. M. Gould , Ph. L. Toint

This paper introduces a novel double regularization scheme for bilevel optimization problems whose lower-level problem is composite and convex, but not necessarily strongly convex, in the lower-level variable. The analysis focuses on the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-06 Mattia Solla , Johannes O. Royset

This paper proposes a new algorithm -- the \underline{S}ingle-timescale Do\underline{u}ble-momentum \underline{St}ochastic \underline{A}pprox\underline{i}matio\underline{n} (SUSTAIN) -- for tackling stochastic unconstrained bilevel…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-06-16 Prashant Khanduri , Siliang Zeng , Mingyi Hong , Hoi-To Wai , Zhaoran Wang , Zhuoran Yang

Penalty-based methods have become popular for solving bilevel optimization (BLO) problems, thanks to their effective first-order nature. However, they often require inner-loop iterations to solve the lower-level (LL) problem and small…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-11-24 Liuyuan Jiang , Quan Xiao , Lisha Chen , Tianyi Chen

We propose a projection-free conditional gradient-type algorithm for smooth stochastic multi-level composition optimization, where the objective function is a nested composition of $T$ functions and the constraint set is a closed convex…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-10-11 Tesi Xiao , Krishnakumar Balasubramanian , Saeed Ghadimi