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Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization, learning from finite differences of function evaluations without backpropagation, has recently regained attention in deep learning due to its memory efficiency and applicability to gray- or black-box…

Split learning (SL) enables collaborative training of large language models (LLMs) between resource-constrained edge devices and compute-rich servers by partitioning model computation across the network boundary. However, existing SL…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-07 Aakriti Lnu , Zhe Li , Dandan Liang , Chao Huang , Rui Li , Haibo Yang

Test-time adaptation (TTA) aims to improve model robustness under distribution shifts by adapting to unlabeled test data, but most existing methods rely on backpropagation (BP), which is computationally costly and incompatible with…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2026-03-17 Ronghao Zhang , Shuaicheng Niu , Qi Deng , Yanjie Dong , Jian Chen , Runhao Zeng

Fine-tuning language models (LMs) has demonstrated success in a wide array of downstream tasks. However, as LMs are scaled up, the memory requirements for backpropagation become prohibitively high. Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization methods can…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-04-15 Tanmay Gautam , Youngsuk Park , Hao Zhou , Parameswaran Raman , Wooseok Ha

Large language models have demonstrated exceptional capabilities across diverse tasks, but their fine-tuning demands significant memory, posing challenges for resource-constrained environments. Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization provides a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-02-18 Zhen Zhang , Yifan Yang , Kai Zhen , Nathan Susanj , Athanasios Mouchtaris , Siegfried Kunzmann , Zheng Zhang

Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated impressive capabilities across numerous NLP tasks. Nevertheless, conventional first-order fine-tuning techniques impose heavy memory demands, creating practical obstacles to real-world…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-27 Zhendong Mi , Qitao Tan , Xiaodong Yu , Zining Zhu , Geng Yuan , Shaoyi Huang

Iterative optimization is central to modern artificial intelligence (AI) and provides a crucial framework for understanding adaptive systems. This review provides a unified perspective on this subject, bridging classic theory with neural…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-22 Jesús García Fernández , Nasir Ahmad , Marcel van Gerven

Fine-tuning pre-trained Large Language Models (LLMs) for downstream tasks using First-Order (FO) optimizers presents significant computational challenges. Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning (PEFT) methods address these by freezing most model…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-16 Reza Shirkavand , Peiran Yu , Qi He , Heng Huang

Zeroth-order (ZO) fine-tuning is attractive for large language models because it replaces backpropagation with forward objective evaluations. Existing implementations nevertheless execute ZO algorithms inside conventional training loops,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-28 Zelin Li , Caiwen Ding

Zeroth-order optimizers have recently emerged as a practical approach for fine-tuning large language models (LLMs), significantly reducing GPU memory consumption compared to traditional first-order methods. Yet, existing zeroth-order…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-02 Kairun Zhang , Haoyu Li , Yanjun Zhao , Yifan Sun , Huan Zhang

Fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) using standard first-order (FO) optimization often drives training toward sharp, poorly generalizing minima. Conversely, zeroth-order (ZO) methods offer stronger exploratory behavior without relying…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-12 Feihu Jin , Ying Tan

Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization has emerged as a promising alternative to gradient-based backpropagation methods, particularly for black-box optimization and large language model (LLM) fine-tuning. However, ZO methods often suffer from slow…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-26 Sihwan Park , Jihun Yun , SungYub Kim , Souvik Kundu , Eunho Yang

Fine-tuning Large Language Models (LLMs) has proven effective for a variety of downstream tasks. However, as LLMs grow in size, the memory demands for backpropagation become increasingly prohibitive. Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization methods…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-25 Ziming Yu , Pan Zhou , Sike Wang , Jia Li , Mi Tian , Hua Huang

Parameter-efficient fine-tuning (PEFT) significantly reduces memory costs when adapting large language models (LLMs) for downstream applications. However, traditional first-order (FO) fine-tuning algorithms incur substantial memory overhead…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-11 Yiming Chen , Yuan Zhang , Liyuan Cao , Kun Yuan , Zaiwen Wen

Fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) with zeroth-order (ZO) optimization reduces memory by approximating gradients through function evaluations. However, existing methods essentially perform updates in a one-dimensional space, and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-19 Jian Feng , Zhihong Huang

We study the problem of training neural networks with quantized parameters. Learning low-precision quantized parameters by enabling computation of gradients via the Straight-Through Estimator (STE) can be challenging. While the STE enables…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-29 Ningfeng Yang , Tor M. Aamodt

Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization with ordinal feedback has emerged as a fundamental problem in modern machine learning systems, particularly in human-in-the-loop settings such as reinforcement learning from human feedback, preference…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-12-23 Haishan Ye

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…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2026-01-12 Ziwei Liu , Borui Kang , Wei Li , Hangjie Yuan , Yanbing Yang , Wenbin Li , Yifan Zhu , Tao Feng , Jun Luo

Zeroth-order (ZO) methods are widely used when gradients are unavailable or prohibitively expensive, including black-box learning and memory-efficient fine-tuning of large models, yet their optimization dynamics in deep learning remain…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-17 Minhak Song , Liang Zhang , Bingcong Li , Niao He , Michael Muehlebach , Sewoong Oh

Backpropagation has been the cornerstone of neural network training for decades, yet its inefficiencies in time and energy consumption limit its suitability for resource-constrained edge devices. While low-precision neural network…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-01 Jingxiao Ma , Priyadarshini Panda , Sherief Reda