PSO-Merging: Merging Models Based on Particle Swarm Optimization

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhang, Kehao, Zhang, Shaolei, Feng, Yang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Zhang, Kehao
Zhang, Shaolei
Feng, Yang
author_facet Zhang, Kehao
Zhang, Shaolei
Feng, Yang
contents Model merging has emerged as an efficient strategy for constructing multitask models by integrating the strengths of multiple available expert models, thereby reducing the need to fine-tune a pre-trained model for all the tasks from scratch. Existing data-independent methods struggle with performance limitations due to the lack of data-driven guidance. Data-driven approaches also face key challenges: gradient-based methods are computationally expensive, limiting their practicality for merging large expert models, whereas existing gradient-free methods often fail to achieve satisfactory results within a limited number of optimization steps. To address these limitations, this paper introduces PSO-Merging, a novel data-driven merging method based on the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). In this approach, we initialize the particle swarm with a pre-trained model, expert models, and sparsified expert models. We then perform multiple iterations, with the final global best particle serving as the merged model. Experimental results on different language models show that PSO-Merging generally outperforms baseline merging methods, offering a more efficient and scalable solution for model merging.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_19839
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle PSO-Merging: Merging Models Based on Particle Swarm Optimization
Zhang, Kehao
Zhang, Shaolei
Feng, Yang
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Model merging has emerged as an efficient strategy for constructing multitask models by integrating the strengths of multiple available expert models, thereby reducing the need to fine-tune a pre-trained model for all the tasks from scratch. Existing data-independent methods struggle with performance limitations due to the lack of data-driven guidance. Data-driven approaches also face key challenges: gradient-based methods are computationally expensive, limiting their practicality for merging large expert models, whereas existing gradient-free methods often fail to achieve satisfactory results within a limited number of optimization steps. To address these limitations, this paper introduces PSO-Merging, a novel data-driven merging method based on the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). In this approach, we initialize the particle swarm with a pre-trained model, expert models, and sparsified expert models. We then perform multiple iterations, with the final global best particle serving as the merged model. Experimental results on different language models show that PSO-Merging generally outperforms baseline merging methods, offering a more efficient and scalable solution for model merging.
title PSO-Merging: Merging Models Based on Particle Swarm Optimization
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.19839