EcoLearn: Optimizing the Carbon Footprint of Federated Learning

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Mehboob, Talha, Bashir, Noman, Iglesias, Jesus Omana, Zink, Michael, Irwin, David
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Mehboob, Talha
Bashir, Noman
Iglesias, Jesus Omana
Zink, Michael
Irwin, David
author_facet Mehboob, Talha
Bashir, Noman
Iglesias, Jesus Omana
Zink, Michael
Irwin, David
contents Federated Learning (FL) distributes machine learning (ML) training across edge devices to reduce data transfer overhead and protect data privacy. Since FL model training may span hundreds of devices and is thus resource- and energy-intensive, it has a significant carbon footprint. Importantly, since energy's carbon-intensity differs substantially (by up to 60$\times$) across locations, training on the same device using the same amount of energy, but at different locations, can incur widely different carbon emissions. While prior work has focused on improving FL's resource- and energy-efficiency by optimizing time-to-accuracy, it implicitly assumes all energy has the same carbon intensity and thus does not optimize carbon efficiency, i.e., work done per unit of carbon emitted. To address the problem, we design EcoLearn, which minimizes FL's carbon footprint without significantly affecting model accuracy or training time. EcoLearn achieves a favorable tradeoff by integrating carbon awareness into multiple aspects of FL training, including i) selecting clients with high data utility and low carbon, ii) provisioning more clients during the initial training rounds, and iii) mitigating stragglers by dynamically adjusting client over-provisioning based on carbon. We implement EcoLearn and its carbon-aware FL training policies in the Flower framework and show that it reduces the carbon footprint of training (by up to $10.8$$\times$) while maintaining model accuracy and training time (within $\sim$$1$\%) compared to state-of-the-art approaches.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2310_17972
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle EcoLearn: Optimizing the Carbon Footprint of Federated Learning
Mehboob, Talha
Bashir, Noman
Iglesias, Jesus Omana
Zink, Michael
Irwin, David
Machine Learning
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Federated Learning (FL) distributes machine learning (ML) training across edge devices to reduce data transfer overhead and protect data privacy. Since FL model training may span hundreds of devices and is thus resource- and energy-intensive, it has a significant carbon footprint. Importantly, since energy's carbon-intensity differs substantially (by up to 60$\times$) across locations, training on the same device using the same amount of energy, but at different locations, can incur widely different carbon emissions. While prior work has focused on improving FL's resource- and energy-efficiency by optimizing time-to-accuracy, it implicitly assumes all energy has the same carbon intensity and thus does not optimize carbon efficiency, i.e., work done per unit of carbon emitted. To address the problem, we design EcoLearn, which minimizes FL's carbon footprint without significantly affecting model accuracy or training time. EcoLearn achieves a favorable tradeoff by integrating carbon awareness into multiple aspects of FL training, including i) selecting clients with high data utility and low carbon, ii) provisioning more clients during the initial training rounds, and iii) mitigating stragglers by dynamically adjusting client over-provisioning based on carbon. We implement EcoLearn and its carbon-aware FL training policies in the Flower framework and show that it reduces the carbon footprint of training (by up to $10.8$$\times$) while maintaining model accuracy and training time (within $\sim$$1$\%) compared to state-of-the-art approaches.
title EcoLearn: Optimizing the Carbon Footprint of Federated Learning
topic Machine Learning
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.17972