Automatic Rank Determination for Low-Rank Adaptation via Submodular Function Maximization

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Gao, Yihang, Tan, Vincent Y. F.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866909673404235776
author Gao, Yihang
Tan, Vincent Y. F.
author_facet Gao, Yihang
Tan, Vincent Y. F.
contents In this paper, we propose SubLoRA, a rank determination method for Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) based on submodular function maximization. In contrast to prior approaches, such as AdaLoRA, that rely on first-order (linearized) approximations of the loss function, SubLoRA utilizes second-order information to capture the potentially complex loss landscape by incorporating the Hessian matrix. We show that the linearization becomes inaccurate and ill-conditioned when the LoRA parameters have been well optimized, motivating the need for a more reliable and nuanced second-order formulation. To this end, we reformulate the rank determination problem as a combinatorial optimization problem with a quadratic objective. However, solving this problem exactly is NP-hard in general. To overcome the computational challenge, we introduce a submodular function maximization framework and devise a greedy algorithm with approximation guarantees. We derive a sufficient and necessary condition under which the rank-determination objective becomes submodular, and construct a closed-form projection of the Hessian matrix that satisfies this condition while maintaining computational efficiency. Our method combines solid theoretical foundations, second-order accuracy, and practical computational efficiency. We further extend SubLoRA to a joint optimization setting, alternating between LoRA parameter updates and rank determination under a rank budget constraint. Extensive experiments on fine-tuning physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) for solving partial differential equations (PDEs) demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach. Results show that SubLoRA outperforms existing methods in both rank determination and joint training performance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_01841
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Automatic Rank Determination for Low-Rank Adaptation via Submodular Function Maximization
Gao, Yihang
Tan, Vincent Y. F.
Machine Learning
Information Theory
Signal Processing
Optimization and Control
In this paper, we propose SubLoRA, a rank determination method for Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) based on submodular function maximization. In contrast to prior approaches, such as AdaLoRA, that rely on first-order (linearized) approximations of the loss function, SubLoRA utilizes second-order information to capture the potentially complex loss landscape by incorporating the Hessian matrix. We show that the linearization becomes inaccurate and ill-conditioned when the LoRA parameters have been well optimized, motivating the need for a more reliable and nuanced second-order formulation. To this end, we reformulate the rank determination problem as a combinatorial optimization problem with a quadratic objective. However, solving this problem exactly is NP-hard in general. To overcome the computational challenge, we introduce a submodular function maximization framework and devise a greedy algorithm with approximation guarantees. We derive a sufficient and necessary condition under which the rank-determination objective becomes submodular, and construct a closed-form projection of the Hessian matrix that satisfies this condition while maintaining computational efficiency. Our method combines solid theoretical foundations, second-order accuracy, and practical computational efficiency. We further extend SubLoRA to a joint optimization setting, alternating between LoRA parameter updates and rank determination under a rank budget constraint. Extensive experiments on fine-tuning physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) for solving partial differential equations (PDEs) demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach. Results show that SubLoRA outperforms existing methods in both rank determination and joint training performance.
title Automatic Rank Determination for Low-Rank Adaptation via Submodular Function Maximization
topic Machine Learning
Information Theory
Signal Processing
Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.01841