Related papers: Simultaneous Computation and Memory Efficient Zero…

Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization is being recognized as a simple yet powerful alternative to standard backpropagation (BP)-based training. Notably, ZO optimization allows for training with only forward passes and (almost) the same memory as…

Vision-Language Continual Learning (VLCL) has attracted significant research attention for its robust capabilities, and the adoption of Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning (PEFT) strategies is enabling these models to achieve competitive…

Fine-tuning Large Language Models (LLMs) with first-order methods like back-propagation is computationally intensive. Zeroth-Order (ZO) optimisation uses function evaluations instead of gradients, reducing memory usage, but suffers from…

Fine-tuning pre-trained speech foundation models for Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) is prevalent, yet constrained by substantial GPU memory requirements. We introduce ZO-ASR, a memory-efficient Zeroth-Order (ZO) method that avoids…

Fine-tuning LLMs is necessary for various dedicated downstream tasks, but classic backpropagation-based fine-tuning methods require substantial GPU memory. To this end, a recent work, MeZO, which relies solely on forward passes to fine-tune…

Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization has long been favored for its biological plausibility and its capacity to handle non-differentiable objectives, yet its computational complexity has historically limited its application in deep neural…

Classical optimization theory establishes that zeroth-order (ZO) algorithms suffer from a dimension-dependent slowdown, with convergence rates typically scaling with the model dimension compared to first-order methods. However, in contrast…

Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization enables memory-efficient training of neural networks by estimating gradients via forward passes only, eliminating the need for backpropagation. However, the stochastic nature of gradient estimation…

Large Language Models (LLMs) have revolutionized Natural Language Processing (NLP) but demand massive GPU resources for training. Lowering the threshold for LLMs training would encourage greater participation from researchers, benefiting…

We consider the problem of minimizing a high-dimensional objective function, which may include a regularization term, using (possibly noisy) evaluations of the function. Such optimization is also called derivative-free, zeroth-order, or…

Prompt learning has become a key method for adapting large language models to specific tasks with limited data. However, traditional gradient-based optimization methods for tuning prompts are computationally intensive, posing challenges for…

We propose an efficient layer-specific optimization (ELO) method designed to enhance continual pretraining (CP) for specific languages in multilingual large language models (MLLMs). This approach addresses the common challenges of high…

Zeroth-Order Optimization (ZOO) provides powerful tools for optimizing functions where explicit gradients are unavailable or expensive to compute. However, the underlying mechanisms of popular ZOO methods, particularly those employing…

Fine-tuning large language models is a popular choice among users trying to adapt them for specific applications. However, fine-tuning these models is a demanding task because the user has to examine several factors, such as resource…

One of the major bottlenecks for deploying popular first-order differentially private (DP) machine learning algorithms (e.g., DP-SGD) lies in their high computation and memory cost, despite the existence of optimized implementations.…

Zero Redundancy Optimizer (ZeRO) has been used to train a wide range of large language models on massive GPUs clusters due to its ease of use, efficiency, and good scalability. However, when training on low-bandwidth clusters, or at scale…

AI accelerator processing capabilities and memory constraints largely dictate the scale in which machine learning workloads (e.g., training and inference) can be executed within a desirable time frame. Training a state of the art,…

Fast gradient-based optimization algorithms have become increasingly essential for the computationally efficient training of machine learning models. One technique is to multiply the gradient by a preconditioner matrix to produce a step,…

We study robust parameter-efficient fine-tuning (PEFT) techniques designed to improve accuracy and generalization while operating within strict computational and memory hardware constraints, specifically focusing on large-language models…

Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization is one key technique for machine learning problems where gradient calculation is expensive or impossible. Several variance reduced ZO proximal algorithms have been proposed to speed up ZO optimization for…