Guided Model Merging for Hybrid Data Learning: Leveraging Centralized Data to Refine Decentralized Models

Fuente: arXiv
Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Zhu, Junyi, Yao, Ruicong, Ceritli, Taha, Ozkan, Savas, Blaschko, Matthew B., Noh, Eunchung, Min, Jeongwon, Min, Cho Jung, Ozay, Mete
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
_version_ 1866912733295804416
author Zhu, Junyi
Yao, Ruicong
Ceritli, Taha
Ozkan, Savas
Blaschko, Matthew B.
Noh, Eunchung
Min, Jeongwon
Min, Cho Jung
Ozay, Mete
author_facet Zhu, Junyi
Yao, Ruicong
Ceritli, Taha
Ozkan, Savas
Blaschko, Matthew B.
Noh, Eunchung
Min, Jeongwon
Min, Cho Jung
Ozay, Mete
contents Current network training paradigms primarily focus on either centralized or decentralized data regimes. However, in practice, data availability often exhibits a hybrid nature, where both regimes coexist. This hybrid setting presents new opportunities for model training, as the two regimes offer complementary trade-offs: decentralized data is abundant but subject to heterogeneity and communication constraints, while centralized data, though limited in volume and potentially unrepresentative, enables better curation and high-throughput access. Despite its potential, effectively combining these paradigms remains challenging, and few frameworks are tailored to hybrid data regimes. To address this, we propose a novel framework that constructs a model atlas from decentralized models and leverages centralized data to refine a global model within this structured space. The refined model is then used to reinitialize the decentralized models. Our method synergizes federated learning (to exploit decentralized data) and model merging (to utilize centralized data), enabling effective training under hybrid data availability. Theoretically, we show that our approach achieves faster convergence than methods relying solely on decentralized data, due to variance reduction in the merging process. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our framework consistently outperforms purely centralized, purely decentralized, and existing hybrid-adaptable methods. Notably, our method remains robust even when the centralized and decentralized data domains differ or when decentralized data contains noise, significantly broadening its applicability.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_20138
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Guided Model Merging for Hybrid Data Learning: Leveraging Centralized Data to Refine Decentralized Models
Zhu, Junyi
Yao, Ruicong
Ceritli, Taha
Ozkan, Savas
Blaschko, Matthew B.
Noh, Eunchung
Min, Jeongwon
Min, Cho Jung
Ozay, Mete
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Current network training paradigms primarily focus on either centralized or decentralized data regimes. However, in practice, data availability often exhibits a hybrid nature, where both regimes coexist. This hybrid setting presents new opportunities for model training, as the two regimes offer complementary trade-offs: decentralized data is abundant but subject to heterogeneity and communication constraints, while centralized data, though limited in volume and potentially unrepresentative, enables better curation and high-throughput access. Despite its potential, effectively combining these paradigms remains challenging, and few frameworks are tailored to hybrid data regimes. To address this, we propose a novel framework that constructs a model atlas from decentralized models and leverages centralized data to refine a global model within this structured space. The refined model is then used to reinitialize the decentralized models. Our method synergizes federated learning (to exploit decentralized data) and model merging (to utilize centralized data), enabling effective training under hybrid data availability. Theoretically, we show that our approach achieves faster convergence than methods relying solely on decentralized data, due to variance reduction in the merging process. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our framework consistently outperforms purely centralized, purely decentralized, and existing hybrid-adaptable methods. Notably, our method remains robust even when the centralized and decentralized data domains differ or when decentralized data contains noise, significantly broadening its applicability.
title Guided Model Merging for Hybrid Data Learning: Leveraging Centralized Data to Refine Decentralized Models
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.20138