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This paper investigates how to accelerate the convergence of distributed optimization algorithms on nonconvex problems with zeroth-order information available only. We propose a zeroth-order (ZO) distributed primal-dual stochastic…
Federated learning (FL) is a distributed machine learning approach that enables multiple local clients and a central server to collaboratively train a model while keeping the data on their own devices. First-order methods, particularly…
Communication on heterogeneous edge networks is a fundamental bottleneck in Federated Learning (FL), restricting both model capacity and user participation. To address this issue, we introduce two novel strategies to reduce communication…
Federated learning (FL) is a distributed learning methodology that allows multiple nodes to cooperatively train a deep learning model, without the need to share their local data. It is a promising solution for telemonitoring systems that…
Fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) using zeroth-order optimization (ZO) offers a memory-efficient alternative to gradient-based methods but suffers from slower convergence and unstable optimization due to noisy gradient estimates.…
Reducing communication overhead in federated learning (FL) is challenging but crucial for large-scale distributed privacy-preserving machine learning. While methods utilizing sparsification or others can largely lower the communication…
In this paper, we consider a stochastic distributed nonconvex optimization problem with the cost function being distributed over $n$ agents having access only to zeroth-order (ZO) information of the cost. This problem has various machine…
We investigate the effectiveness of adaptive zeroth-order (ZO) optimization for memory-constrained fine-tuning of large language models (LLMs). Contrary to prior claims, we show that adaptive ZO methods such as ZO-Adam offer no convergence…
Parameter-efficient fine-tuning (PEFT) methods typically assume that Large Language Models (LLMs) are trained on data from a single device or client. However, real-world scenarios often require fine-tuning these models on private data…
We propose Compressed Vertical Federated Learning (C-VFL) for communication-efficient training on vertically partitioned data. In C-VFL, a server and multiple parties collaboratively train a model on their respective features utilizing…
We revisit the one-point feedback zeroth-order (ZO) optimization problem, a classical setting in derivative-free optimization where only a single noisy function evaluation is available per query. Compared to their two-point counterparts,…
Zero-order (ZO) optimization is a powerful tool for dealing with realistic constraints. On the other hand, the gradient-tracking (GT) technique proved to be an efficient method for distributed optimization aiming to achieve consensus.…
Continual learning requires new-task adaptation without damaging previously acquired capabilities. Recent forward-pass and zeroth-order (ZO) results show that low-query adaptation may retain better than first-order (FO) descent, but the…
Federated Learning (FL) offers a promising pathway for collaboratively fine-tuning Large Language Models (LLMs) at the edge; however, this paradigm faces a critical bottleneck: the prohibitive communication and memory overheads incurred by…
Federated learning has attracted increasing attention with the emergence of distributed data. While extensive federated learning algorithms have been proposed for the non-convex distributed problem, federated learning in practice still…
The longstanding goals of federated learning (FL) require rigorous privacy guarantees and low communication overhead while holding a relatively high model accuracy. However, simultaneously achieving all the goals is extremely challenging.…
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…
We examine fundamental tradeoffs in iterative distributed zeroth and first order stochastic optimization in multi-agent networks in terms of \emph{communication cost} (number of per-node transmissions) and \emph{computational cost},…
Combining gradient compression methods (e.g., CountSketch, quantization) and adaptive optimizers (e.g., Adam, AMSGrad) is a desirable goal in federated learning (FL), with potential benefits on both fewer communication rounds and less…
Federated Learning (FL) enables distributed model training on edge devices while preserving data privacy. However, clients tend to have non-Independent and Identically Distributed (non-IID) data, which often leads to client-drift, and…