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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…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-02-28 Yehonathan Refael , Iftach Arbel , Ofir Lindenbaum , Tom Tirer

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…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-03-20 HanQin Cai , Daniel Mckenzie , Wotao Yin , Zhenliang Zhang

Large Language Models (LLMs) are typically static after training, yet real-world applications require continual adaptation to new knowledge without degrading existing capabilities. Standard approaches to updating models, like full…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-08 Satyam Goyal , Anirudh Kanchi , Garv Shah , Prakhar Gupta

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…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-24 Chen Zhang , Yuxin Cheng , Chenchen Ding , Shuqi Wang , Jingreng Lei , Runsheng Yu , Yik-Chung WU , Ngai Wong

Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization enables dimension-free communication in federated learning (FL), making it attractive for fine-tuning of large language models (LLMs) due to significant communication savings. However, existing ZO-FL methods…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-03 Zhe Li , Bicheng Ying , Zidong Liu , Chaosheng Dong , Haibo Yang

Fine-tuning Large Language Models (LLMs) for downstream tasks often compromises safety alignment, even when using parameter-efficient methods like LoRA. In this work, we uncover a notable property: fine-tuned models preserve the geometric…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-25 Thong Bach , Thanh Nguyen-Tang , Dung Nguyen , Thao Minh Le , Truyen Tran

Communication-efficient distributed training algorithms have received considerable interest recently due to their benefits for training Large Language Models (LLMs) in bandwidth-constrained settings, such as across datacenters and over the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-07 Amir Sarfi , Benjamin Thérien , Joel Lidin , Eugene Belilovsky

Recent research explores optimization using large language models (LLMs) by either iteratively seeking next-step solutions from LLMs or directly prompting LLMs for an optimizer. However, these approaches exhibit inherent limitations,…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-03-06 Zeyuan Ma , Hongshu Guo , Jiacheng Chen , Guojun Peng , Zhiguang Cao , Yining Ma , Yue-Jiao Gong

Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization is popular in real-world applications that accessing the gradient information is expensive or unavailable. Recently, adaptive ZO methods that normalize gradient estimators by the empirical standard deviation…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-03 Haishan Ye , Luo Luo

The alignment of large language models (LLMs) with human preferences remains a key challenge. While post-training techniques like Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) and Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) have achieved…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-07-11 Qingyu Yin , Chak Tou Leong , Minjun Zhu , Hanqi Yan , Qiang Zhang , Yulan He , Wenjie Li , Jun Wang , Yue Zhang , Linyi Yang

Fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) requires significant memory, often exceeding the capacity of a single GPU. A common solution to this memory challenge is offloading compute and data from the GPU to the CPU. However, this approach is…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2025-02-11 Siyuan Chen , Zhuofeng Wang , Zelong Guan , Yudong Liu , Phillip B. Gibbons

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…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-06 Zhe Li , Bicheng Ying , Zidong Liu , Haibo Yang

Federated fine-tuning of large language models (LLMs) enables collaborative tuning across distributed clients. However, due to the large size of LLMs, local updates in federated learning (FL) may incur substantial video random-access memory…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-06 Chuiyang Meng , Ming Tang , Vincent W. S. Wong

Zeroth-order optimization (ZO) has been a powerful framework for solving black-box problems, which estimates gradients using zeroth-order data to update variables iteratively. The practical applicability of ZO critically depends on the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-03 Ruiyang Jin , Yuke Zhou , Yujie Tang , Jie Song , Siyang Gao

The training efficiency and scalability of language models on massive clusters currently remain a critical bottleneck. Mainstream approaches like ND parallelism are often cumbersome and complex, while flexible alternatives such as the Zero…

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing · Computer Science 2025-10-24 Huawei Bai , Yifan Huang , Wenqi Shi , Ansheng You , Feifan Shao , Tengfei Han , Minghui Yu

Federated learning (FL), as an emerging edge artificial intelligence paradigm, enables many edge devices to collaboratively train a global model without sharing their private data. To enhance the training efficiency of FL, various…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-23 Wenzhi Fang , Ziyi Yu , Yuning Jiang , Yuanming Shi , Colin N. Jones , Yong Zhou

Federated learning enables collaborative model training across numerous edge devices without requiring participants to share data; however, memory and communication constraints on these edge devices may preclude their participation in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-04 Gwen Legate , Irina Rish , Eugene Belilovsky

Using Large Language Models (LLMs) in real-world applications presents significant challenges, particularly in balancing computational efficiency with model performance. Optimizing acceleration after fine-tuning and during inference is…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-09-09 Sajjad Kachuee , Mohammad Sharifkhani

The efficacy of large language models (LLMs) in understanding and generating natural language has aroused a wide interest in developing prompt-based methods to harness the power of black-box LLMs. Existing methodologies usually prioritize a…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-03-06 Wenyang Hu , Yao Shu , Zongmin Yu , Zhaoxuan Wu , Xiangqiang Lin , Zhongxiang Dai , See-Kiong Ng , Bryan Kian Hsiang Low

Existing low-rank adaptation (LoRA) methods face challenges on sparse large language models (LLMs) due to the inability to maintain sparsity. Recent works introduced methods that maintain sparsity by augmenting LoRA techniques with…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-01-16 Yuxuan Hu , Jing Zhang , Xiaodong Chen , Zhe Zhao , Cuiping Li , Hong Chen