An Efficient Training Algorithm for Models with Block-wise Sparsity

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhu, Ding, Zuo, Zhiqun, Khalili, Mohammad Mahdi
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Zhu, Ding
Zuo, Zhiqun
Khalili, Mohammad Mahdi
author_facet Zhu, Ding
Zuo, Zhiqun
Khalili, Mohammad Mahdi
contents Large-scale machine learning (ML) models are increasingly being used in critical domains like education, lending, recruitment, healthcare, criminal justice, etc. However, the training, deployment, and utilization of these models demand substantial computational resources. To decrease computation and memory costs, machine learning models with sparse weight matrices are widely used in the literature. Among sparse models, those with special sparse structures (e.g., models with block-wise sparse weight matrices) fit better with the hardware accelerators and can decrease the memory and computation costs during the inference. Unfortunately, while there are several efficient training methods, none of them are designed to train a block-wise sparse model efficiently. As a result, the current methods for training block-wise sparse models start with full and dense models leading to inefficient training. In this work, we focus on training models with \textit{block-wise sparse matrices} and propose an efficient training algorithm to decrease both computation and memory costs during training and inference. In addition, we will show that our proposed method enables us to efficiently find the right block size for the sparsity pattern during the training process. Our extensive empirical and theoretical analyses show that our algorithms can decrease the computation and memory costs significantly without a performance drop compared to baselines.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_21928
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle An Efficient Training Algorithm for Models with Block-wise Sparsity
Zhu, Ding
Zuo, Zhiqun
Khalili, Mohammad Mahdi
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Large-scale machine learning (ML) models are increasingly being used in critical domains like education, lending, recruitment, healthcare, criminal justice, etc. However, the training, deployment, and utilization of these models demand substantial computational resources. To decrease computation and memory costs, machine learning models with sparse weight matrices are widely used in the literature. Among sparse models, those with special sparse structures (e.g., models with block-wise sparse weight matrices) fit better with the hardware accelerators and can decrease the memory and computation costs during the inference. Unfortunately, while there are several efficient training methods, none of them are designed to train a block-wise sparse model efficiently. As a result, the current methods for training block-wise sparse models start with full and dense models leading to inefficient training. In this work, we focus on training models with \textit{block-wise sparse matrices} and propose an efficient training algorithm to decrease both computation and memory costs during training and inference. In addition, we will show that our proposed method enables us to efficiently find the right block size for the sparsity pattern during the training process. Our extensive empirical and theoretical analyses show that our algorithms can decrease the computation and memory costs significantly without a performance drop compared to baselines.
title An Efficient Training Algorithm for Models with Block-wise Sparsity
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.21928