Rethinking Data Mixture for Large Language Models: A Comprehensive Survey and New Perspectives

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Liu, Yajiao, Chen, Congliang, Yang, Junchi, Sun, Ruoyu
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Liu, Yajiao
Chen, Congliang
Yang, Junchi
Sun, Ruoyu
author_facet Liu, Yajiao
Chen, Congliang
Yang, Junchi
Sun, Ruoyu
contents Training large language models with data collected from various domains can improve their performance on downstream tasks. However, given a fixed training budget, the sampling proportions of these different domains significantly impact the model's performance. How can we determine the domain weights across different data domains to train the best-performing model within constrained computational resources? In this paper, we provide a comprehensive overview of existing data mixture methods. First, we propose a fine-grained categorization of existing methods, extending beyond the previous offline and online classification. Offline methods are further grouped into heuristic-based, algorithm-based, and function fitting-based methods. For online methods, we categorize them into three groups: online min-max optimization, online mixing law, and other approaches by drawing connections with the optimization frameworks underlying offline methods. Second, we summarize the problem formulations, representative algorithms for each subtype of offline and online methods, and clarify the relationships and distinctions among them. Finally, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each method and highlight key challenges in the field of data mixture.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_21598
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Rethinking Data Mixture for Large Language Models: A Comprehensive Survey and New Perspectives
Liu, Yajiao
Chen, Congliang
Yang, Junchi
Sun, Ruoyu
Computation and Language
Training large language models with data collected from various domains can improve their performance on downstream tasks. However, given a fixed training budget, the sampling proportions of these different domains significantly impact the model's performance. How can we determine the domain weights across different data domains to train the best-performing model within constrained computational resources? In this paper, we provide a comprehensive overview of existing data mixture methods. First, we propose a fine-grained categorization of existing methods, extending beyond the previous offline and online classification. Offline methods are further grouped into heuristic-based, algorithm-based, and function fitting-based methods. For online methods, we categorize them into three groups: online min-max optimization, online mixing law, and other approaches by drawing connections with the optimization frameworks underlying offline methods. Second, we summarize the problem formulations, representative algorithms for each subtype of offline and online methods, and clarify the relationships and distinctions among them. Finally, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each method and highlight key challenges in the field of data mixture.
title Rethinking Data Mixture for Large Language Models: A Comprehensive Survey and New Perspectives
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.21598