Corner Gradient Descent

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Yarotsky, Dmitry
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Yarotsky, Dmitry
author_facet Yarotsky, Dmitry
contents We consider SGD-type optimization on infinite-dimensional quadratic problems with power law spectral conditions. It is well-known that on such problems deterministic GD has loss convergence rates $L_t=O(t^{-ζ})$, which can be improved to $L_t=O(t^{-2ζ})$ by using Heavy Ball with a non-stationary Jacobi-based schedule (and the latter rate is optimal among fixed schedules). However, in the mini-batch Stochastic GD setting, the sampling noise causes the Jacobi HB to diverge; accordingly no $O(t^{-2ζ})$ algorithm is known. In this paper we show that rates up to $O(t^{-2ζ})$ can be achieved by a generalized stationary SGD with infinite memory. We start by identifying generalized (S)GD algorithms with contours in the complex plane. We then show that contours that have a corner with external angle $θπ$ accelerate the plain GD rate $O(t^{-ζ})$ to $O(t^{-θζ})$. For deterministic GD, increasing $θ$ allows to achieve rates arbitrarily close to $O(t^{-2ζ})$. However, in Stochastic GD, increasing $θ$ also amplifies the sampling noise, so in general $θ$ needs to be optimized by balancing the acceleration and noise effects. We prove that the optimal rate is given by $θ_{\max}=\min(2,ν,\tfrac{2}{ζ+1/ν})$, where $ν,ζ$ are the exponents appearing in the capacity and source spectral conditions. Furthermore, using fast rational approximations of the power functions, we show that ideal corner algorithms can be efficiently approximated by finite-memory algorithms, and demonstrate their practical efficiency on a synthetic problem and MNIST.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_12519
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Corner Gradient Descent
Yarotsky, Dmitry
Optimization and Control
Machine Learning
We consider SGD-type optimization on infinite-dimensional quadratic problems with power law spectral conditions. It is well-known that on such problems deterministic GD has loss convergence rates $L_t=O(t^{-ζ})$, which can be improved to $L_t=O(t^{-2ζ})$ by using Heavy Ball with a non-stationary Jacobi-based schedule (and the latter rate is optimal among fixed schedules). However, in the mini-batch Stochastic GD setting, the sampling noise causes the Jacobi HB to diverge; accordingly no $O(t^{-2ζ})$ algorithm is known. In this paper we show that rates up to $O(t^{-2ζ})$ can be achieved by a generalized stationary SGD with infinite memory. We start by identifying generalized (S)GD algorithms with contours in the complex plane. We then show that contours that have a corner with external angle $θπ$ accelerate the plain GD rate $O(t^{-ζ})$ to $O(t^{-θζ})$. For deterministic GD, increasing $θ$ allows to achieve rates arbitrarily close to $O(t^{-2ζ})$. However, in Stochastic GD, increasing $θ$ also amplifies the sampling noise, so in general $θ$ needs to be optimized by balancing the acceleration and noise effects. We prove that the optimal rate is given by $θ_{\max}=\min(2,ν,\tfrac{2}{ζ+1/ν})$, where $ν,ζ$ are the exponents appearing in the capacity and source spectral conditions. Furthermore, using fast rational approximations of the power functions, we show that ideal corner algorithms can be efficiently approximated by finite-memory algorithms, and demonstrate their practical efficiency on a synthetic problem and MNIST.
title Corner Gradient Descent
topic Optimization and Control
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.12519