Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Healey, Quill, Nobel, Parth, Boyd, Stephen
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.17522
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866918129886560256
author Healey, Quill
Nobel, Parth
Boyd, Stephen
author_facet Healey, Quill
Nobel, Parth
Boyd, Stephen
contents Quadratic cone programs are rapidly becoming the standard canonical form for convex optimization problems. In this paper we address the question of differentiating the solution map for such problems, generalizing previous work for linear cone programs. We follow a similar path, using the implicit function theorem applied to the optimality conditions for a homogenous primal-dual embedding. Along with our proof of differentiability, we present methods for efficiently evaluating the derivative operator and its adjoint at a vector. Additionally, we present an open-source implementation of these methods, named \texttt{diffqcp}, that can execute on CPUs and GPUs. GPU-compatibility is already of consequence as it enables convex optimization solvers to be integrated into neural networks with reduced data movement, but we go a step further demonstrating that \texttt{diffqcp}'s performance on GPUs surpasses the performance of its CPU-based counterpart for larger quadratic cone programs.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_17522
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Differentiating Through a Quadratic Cone Program
Healey, Quill
Nobel, Parth
Boyd, Stephen
Optimization and Control
Quadratic cone programs are rapidly becoming the standard canonical form for convex optimization problems. In this paper we address the question of differentiating the solution map for such problems, generalizing previous work for linear cone programs. We follow a similar path, using the implicit function theorem applied to the optimality conditions for a homogenous primal-dual embedding. Along with our proof of differentiability, we present methods for efficiently evaluating the derivative operator and its adjoint at a vector. Additionally, we present an open-source implementation of these methods, named \texttt{diffqcp}, that can execute on CPUs and GPUs. GPU-compatibility is already of consequence as it enables convex optimization solvers to be integrated into neural networks with reduced data movement, but we go a step further demonstrating that \texttt{diffqcp}'s performance on GPUs surpasses the performance of its CPU-based counterpart for larger quadratic cone programs.
title Differentiating Through a Quadratic Cone Program
topic Optimization and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.17522