KO: Kinetics-inspired Neural Optimizer with PDE Simulation Approaches

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Feng, Mingquan, Huang, Yixin, Fu, Yifan, Wang, Shaobo, Yan, Junchi
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Feng, Mingquan
Huang, Yixin
Fu, Yifan
Wang, Shaobo
Yan, Junchi
author_facet Feng, Mingquan
Huang, Yixin
Fu, Yifan
Wang, Shaobo
Yan, Junchi
contents The design of optimization algorithms for neural networks remains a critical challenge, with most existing methods relying on heuristic adaptations of gradient-based approaches. This paper introduces KO (Kinetics-inspired Optimizer), a novel neural optimizer inspired by kinetic theory and partial differential equation (PDE) simulations. We reimagine the training dynamics of network parameters as the evolution of a particle system governed by kinetic principles, where parameter updates are simulated via a numerical scheme for the Boltzmann transport equation (BTE) that models stochastic particle collisions. This physics-driven approach inherently promotes parameter diversity during optimization, mitigating the phenomenon of parameter condensation, i.e. collapse of network parameters into low-dimensional subspaces, through mechanisms analogous to thermal diffusion in physical systems. We analyze this property, establishing both a mathematical proof and a physical interpretation. Extensive experiments on image classification (CIFAR-10/100, ImageNet) and text classification (IMDB, Snips) tasks demonstrate that KO consistently outperforms baseline optimizers (e.g., Adam, SGD), achieving accuracy improvements while computation cost remains comparable.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_14777
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle KO: Kinetics-inspired Neural Optimizer with PDE Simulation Approaches
Feng, Mingquan
Huang, Yixin
Fu, Yifan
Wang, Shaobo
Yan, Junchi
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
The design of optimization algorithms for neural networks remains a critical challenge, with most existing methods relying on heuristic adaptations of gradient-based approaches. This paper introduces KO (Kinetics-inspired Optimizer), a novel neural optimizer inspired by kinetic theory and partial differential equation (PDE) simulations. We reimagine the training dynamics of network parameters as the evolution of a particle system governed by kinetic principles, where parameter updates are simulated via a numerical scheme for the Boltzmann transport equation (BTE) that models stochastic particle collisions. This physics-driven approach inherently promotes parameter diversity during optimization, mitigating the phenomenon of parameter condensation, i.e. collapse of network parameters into low-dimensional subspaces, through mechanisms analogous to thermal diffusion in physical systems. We analyze this property, establishing both a mathematical proof and a physical interpretation. Extensive experiments on image classification (CIFAR-10/100, ImageNet) and text classification (IMDB, Snips) tasks demonstrate that KO consistently outperforms baseline optimizers (e.g., Adam, SGD), achieving accuracy improvements while computation cost remains comparable.
title KO: Kinetics-inspired Neural Optimizer with PDE Simulation Approaches
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.14777