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This paper studies the complexity of finding an $\epsilon$-stationary point for stochastic bilevel optimization when the upper-level problem is nonconvex and the lower-level problem is strongly convex. Recent work proposed the first-order…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-10 Lesi Chen , Junru Li , El Mahdi Chayti , Jingzhao Zhang

To reduce complexity and achieve scalable performance in high-dimensional black-box settings, we propose a distributed method for nonconvex derivative-free optimization of continuous variables with an additively separable objective, subject…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-11-03 Damilola Fasiku , Wentao Tang

Bilevel optimization has emerged as a technique for addressing a wide range of machine learning problems that involve an outer objective implicitly determined by the minimizer of an inner problem. While prior works have primarily focused on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-18 Fares El Khoury , Edouard Pauwels , Samuel Vaiter , Michael Arbel

We propose a new family of multilevel methods for unconstrained minimization. The resulting strategies are multilevel extensions of high-order optimization methods based on q-order Taylor models (with q >= 1) that have been recently…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2019-04-10 Henri Calandra , Serge Gratton , Elisa Riccietti , Xavier Vasseur

In this paper, we develop zeroth-order algorithms with provably (nearly) optimal sample complexity for stochastic bilevel optimization, where only noisy function evaluations are available. We propose two distinct algorithms: the first is…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-10-07 Alireza Aghasi , Jeongyeol Kwon , Saeed Ghadimi

In the paper, we generalize the approach Gasnikov et. al, 2017, which allows to solve (stochastic) convex optimization problems with an inexact gradient-free oracle, to the convex-concave saddle-point problem. The proposed approach works,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-09-13 Aleksandr Beznosikov , Abdurakhmon Sadiev , Alexander Gasnikov

Nonsmooth nonconvex optimization problems broadly emerge in machine learning and business decision making, whereas two core challenges impede the development of efficient solution methods with finite-time convergence guarantee: the lack of…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-10-18 Tianyi Lin , Zeyu Zheng , Michael I. Jordan

It is well-known that coupling constraints in linear bilevel optimization can lead to disconnected feasible sets, which is not possible without coupling constraints. However, there is no difference between linear bilevel problems with and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-06-18 Dorothee Henke , Henri Lefebvre , Martin Schmidt , Johannes Thürauf

In this paper, we consider a bilevel polynomial optimization problem where the objective and the constraint functions of both the upper and the lower level problems are polynomials. We present methods for finding its global minimizers and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2016-01-14 V. Jeyakumar , J. B. Lasserre , G. Li , T. S. Pham

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 efficient methods for solving stochastic simple bilevel optimization problems with convex inner levels, where the goal is to minimize an outer stochastic objective function subject to the solution set of an inner stochastic…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-11-25 Khanh-Hung Giang-Tran , Soroosh Shafiee , Nam Ho-Nguyen

Interest in bilevel optimization has grown in recent years, partially due to its applications to tackle challenging machine-learning problems. Several exciting recent works have been centered around developing efficient gradient-based…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-08-27 Liuyuan Jiang , Quan Xiao , Victor M. Tenorio , Fernando Real-Rojas , Antonio G. Marques , Tianyi Chen

In this article a special class of nonlinear optimal control problems involving a bilinear term in the boundary condition is studied. These kind of problems arise for instance in the identification of an unknown space-dependent Robin…

Numerical Analysis · Mathematics 2024-12-20 Max Winkler

Bilevel optimization aims to optimize an outer objective function that depends on the solution to an inner optimization problem. It is routinely used in Machine Learning, notably for hyperparameter tuning. The conventional method to compute…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-27 Zhenzhang Ye , Gabriel Peyré , Daniel Cremers , Pierre Ablin

We develop an algorithm for minimizing a function using $n$ batched function value measurements at each of $T$ rounds by using classifiers to identify a function's sublevel set. We show that sufficiently accurate classifiers can achieve…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-04-12 Tatsunori B. Hashimoto , Steve Yadlowsky , John C. Duchi

Bilevel optimization is characterized by a two-level optimization structure, where the upper-level problem is constrained by optimal lower-level solutions, and such structures are prevalent in real-world problems. The constraint by optimal…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-29 Ruth Wan Theng Chew , Quoc Phong Nguyen , Bryan Kian Hsiang Low

Bilevel programs (BPs) find a wide range of applications in fields such as energy, transportation, and machine learning. As compared to BPs with continuous (linear/convex) optimization problems in both levels, the BPs with discrete decision…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-07-25 Bo Zhou , Ruiwei Jiang , Siqian Shen

It is well known that bilevel optimization problems are hard to solve both in theory and practice. In this paper, we highlight a further computational difficulty when it comes to solving bilevel problems with continuous but nonconvex lower…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-05-04 Yasmine Beck , Daniel Bienstock , Martin Schmidt , Johannes Thürauf

Gradient methods have become mainstream techniques for Bi-Level Optimization (BLO) in learning and vision fields. The validity of existing works heavily relies on solving a series of approximation subproblems with extraordinarily high…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-05-23 Risheng Liu , Xuan Liu , Wei Yao , Shangzhi Zeng , Jin Zhang

Finding an optimal alignment connecting two end-points in a specified corridor is a complex problem that requires solving three interrelated sub-problems, namely the horizontal alignment, vertical alignment and earthwork optimization…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2015-07-13 Sukanto Mondal , Yves Lucet , Warren Hare