Sparse Training of Neural Networks based on Multilevel Mirror Descent

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Lunk, Yannick, Scott, Sebastian J., Bungert, Leon
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Lunk, Yannick
Scott, Sebastian J.
Bungert, Leon
author_facet Lunk, Yannick
Scott, Sebastian J.
Bungert, Leon
contents We introduce a dynamic sparse training algorithm based on linearized Bregman iterations / mirror descent that exploits the naturally incurred sparsity by alternating between periods of static and dynamic sparsity pattern updates. The key idea is to combine sparsity-inducing Bregman iterations with adaptive freezing of the network structure to enable efficient exploration of the sparse parameter space while maintaining sparsity. We provide convergence guaranties by embedding our method in a multilevel optimization framework. Furthermore, we empirically show that our algorithm can produce highly sparse and accurate models on standard benchmarks. We also show that the theoretical number of FLOPs compared to SGD training can be reduced from 38% for standard Bregman iterations to 6% for our method while maintaining test accuracy.We additionally show a training time reduction by about 50%, when using a sparsity-aware CPU implementation of our method.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_03535
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Sparse Training of Neural Networks based on Multilevel Mirror Descent
Lunk, Yannick
Scott, Sebastian J.
Bungert, Leon
Machine Learning
Numerical Analysis
Optimization and Control
65K10, 68T05, 90C26
I.2.6; F.2.1; G.1.6
We introduce a dynamic sparse training algorithm based on linearized Bregman iterations / mirror descent that exploits the naturally incurred sparsity by alternating between periods of static and dynamic sparsity pattern updates. The key idea is to combine sparsity-inducing Bregman iterations with adaptive freezing of the network structure to enable efficient exploration of the sparse parameter space while maintaining sparsity. We provide convergence guaranties by embedding our method in a multilevel optimization framework. Furthermore, we empirically show that our algorithm can produce highly sparse and accurate models on standard benchmarks. We also show that the theoretical number of FLOPs compared to SGD training can be reduced from 38% for standard Bregman iterations to 6% for our method while maintaining test accuracy.We additionally show a training time reduction by about 50%, when using a sparsity-aware CPU implementation of our method.
title Sparse Training of Neural Networks based on Multilevel Mirror Descent
topic Machine Learning
Numerical Analysis
Optimization and Control
65K10, 68T05, 90C26
I.2.6; F.2.1; G.1.6
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.03535