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This paper considers a class of distributed resource allocation problems where each agent privately holds a smooth, potentially non-convex local objective, subject to a globally coupled equality constraint. Built upon the existing method,…

Decentralized optimization on Riemannian manifolds is foundational for many modern machine learning and signal processing applications in which data are non-Euclidean and generated and processed in a distributed manner. Although intrinsic…

Mirror Descent (MD) is a scalable first-order method widely used in large-scale optimization, with applications in image processing, policy optimization, and neural network training. This paper generalizes MD to optimization on Riemannian…

Many modern learning tasks involve fitting nonlinear models to data which are trained in an overparameterized regime where the parameters of the model exceed the size of the training dataset. Due to this overparameterization, the training…

We analyze inexact Riemannian gradient descent (RGD) where Riemannian gradients and retractions are inexactly (and cheaply) computed. Our focus is on understanding when inexact RGD converges and what is the complexity in the general…

Gradient-based first-order convex optimization algorithms find widespread applicability in a variety of domains, including machine learning tasks. Motivated by the recent advances in fixed-time stability theory of continuous-time dynamical…

This paper focuses on minimizing a smooth function combined with a nonsmooth regularization term on a compact Riemannian submanifold embedded in the Euclidean space under a decentralized setting. Typically, there are two types of approaches…

In modern deep learning, highly subsampled stochastic approximation (SA) methods are preferred to sample average approximation (SAA) methods because of large data sets as well as generalization properties. Additionally, due to perceived…

We develop new sub-optimality bounds for gradient descent (GD) that depend on the conditioning of the objective along the path of optimization rather than on global, worst-case constants. Key to our proofs is directional smoothness, a…

Nonconvex optimization problems such as the ones in training deep neural networks suffer from a phenomenon called saddle point proliferation. This means that there are a vast number of high error saddle points present in the loss function.…

Due to the non-smoothness of optimization problems in Machine Learning, generalized smoothness assumptions have been gaining a lot of attention in recent years. One of the most popular assumptions of this type is $(L_0,L_1)$-smoothness…

We develop new algorithms for Riemannian bilevel optimization. We focus in particular on batch and stochastic gradient-based methods, with the explicit goal of avoiding second-order information such as Riemannian hyper-gradients. We propose…

This paper optimizes the step coefficients of first-order methods for smooth convex minimization in terms of the worst-case convergence bound (i.e., efficiency) of the decrease in the gradient norm. This work is based on the performance…

We consider distributed smooth nonconvex unconstrained optimization over networks, modeled as a connected graph. We examine the behavior of distributed gradient-based algorithms near strict saddle points. Specifically, we establish that (i)…

Finding constrained saddle points on Riemannian manifolds is significant for analyzing energy landscapes arising in physics and chemistry. Existing works have been limited to special manifolds that admit global regular level-set…

One of the mysteries in the success of neural networks is randomly initialized first order methods like gradient descent can achieve zero training loss even though the objective function is non-convex and non-smooth. This paper demystifies…

Steady states are invaluable in the study of dynamical systems. High-dimensional dynamical systems, due to a separation of time-scales, often evolve towards a lower dimensional manifold $M$. We introduce an approach to locate saddle points…

Characterizing and understanding the dynamics of stochastic gradient descent (SGD) around saddle points remains an open problem. We first show that saddle points in neural networks can be divided into two types, among which the Type-II…

Adaptive methods such as Adam and RMSProp are widely used in deep learning but are not well understood. In this paper, we seek a crisp, clean and precise characterization of their behavior in nonconvex settings. To this end, we first…

We derive stability criteria for saddle points of a class of nonsmooth optimization problems in Hilbert spaces arising in PDE-constrained optimization, using metric regularity of infinite-dimensional set-valued mappings. A main ingredient…