Scaling Laws for Precision in High-Dimensional Linear Regression

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Zhang, Dechen, Tang, Xuan, Liang, Yingyu, Zou, Difan
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Zhang, Dechen
Tang, Xuan
Liang, Yingyu
Zou, Difan
author_facet Zhang, Dechen
Tang, Xuan
Liang, Yingyu
Zou, Difan
contents Low-precision training is critical for optimizing the trade-off between model quality and training costs, necessitating the joint allocation of model size, dataset size, and numerical precision. While empirical scaling laws suggest that quantization impacts effective model and data capacities or acts as an additive error, the theoretical mechanisms governing these effects remain largely unexplored. In this work, we initiate a theoretical study of scaling laws for low-precision training within a high-dimensional sketched linear regression framework. By analyzing multiplicative (signal-dependent) and additive (signal-independent) quantization, we identify a critical dichotomy in their scaling behaviors. Our analysis reveals that while both schemes introduce an additive error and degrade the effective data size, they exhibit distinct effects on effective model size: multiplicative quantization maintains the full-precision model size, whereas additive quantization reduces the effective model size. Numerical experiments validate our theoretical findings. By rigorously characterizing the complex interplay among model scale, dataset size, and quantization error, our work provides a principled theoretical basis for optimizing training protocols under practical hardware constraints.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_19241
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Scaling Laws for Precision in High-Dimensional Linear Regression
Zhang, Dechen
Tang, Xuan
Liang, Yingyu
Zou, Difan
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Low-precision training is critical for optimizing the trade-off between model quality and training costs, necessitating the joint allocation of model size, dataset size, and numerical precision. While empirical scaling laws suggest that quantization impacts effective model and data capacities or acts as an additive error, the theoretical mechanisms governing these effects remain largely unexplored. In this work, we initiate a theoretical study of scaling laws for low-precision training within a high-dimensional sketched linear regression framework. By analyzing multiplicative (signal-dependent) and additive (signal-independent) quantization, we identify a critical dichotomy in their scaling behaviors. Our analysis reveals that while both schemes introduce an additive error and degrade the effective data size, they exhibit distinct effects on effective model size: multiplicative quantization maintains the full-precision model size, whereas additive quantization reduces the effective model size. Numerical experiments validate our theoretical findings. By rigorously characterizing the complex interplay among model scale, dataset size, and quantization error, our work provides a principled theoretical basis for optimizing training protocols under practical hardware constraints.
title Scaling Laws for Precision in High-Dimensional Linear Regression
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.19241