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Main Authors: Lin, Zheng, Aouedi, Ons, Ni, Wei, Chatzinotas, Symeon, Chen, Xianhao
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.18540
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author Lin, Zheng
Aouedi, Ons
Ni, Wei
Chatzinotas, Symeon
Chen, Xianhao
author_facet Lin, Zheng
Aouedi, Ons
Ni, Wei
Chatzinotas, Symeon
Chen, Xianhao
contents The increasing complexity of neural networks poses significant challenges for democratizing FL on resource?constrained client devices. Parallel split learning (PSL) has emerged as a promising solution by offloading substantial computing workload to a server via model partitioning, shrinking client-side computing load, and eliminating the client-side model aggregation for reduced communication and deployment costs. Since PSL is aggregation-free, it suffers from severe training divergence stemming from gradient directional inconsistency across clients. To address this challenge, we propose GAPSL, a gradient-aligned PSL framework that comprises two key components: leader gradient identification (LGI) and gradient direction alignment (GDA). LGI dynamically selects a set of directionally consistent client gradients to construct a leader gradient that captures the global convergence trend. GDA employs a direction-aware regularization to align each client's gradient with the leader gradient, thereby mitigating inter-device gradient directional inconsistency and enhancing model convergence. We evaluate GAPSL on a prototype computing testbed. Extensive experiments demonstrate that GAPSL consistently outperforms state-of-the-art benchmarks in training accuracy and latency.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_18540
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle GAPSL: A Gradient-Aligned Parallel Split Learning on Heterogeneous Data
Lin, Zheng
Aouedi, Ons
Ni, Wei
Chatzinotas, Symeon
Chen, Xianhao
Machine Learning
The increasing complexity of neural networks poses significant challenges for democratizing FL on resource?constrained client devices. Parallel split learning (PSL) has emerged as a promising solution by offloading substantial computing workload to a server via model partitioning, shrinking client-side computing load, and eliminating the client-side model aggregation for reduced communication and deployment costs. Since PSL is aggregation-free, it suffers from severe training divergence stemming from gradient directional inconsistency across clients. To address this challenge, we propose GAPSL, a gradient-aligned PSL framework that comprises two key components: leader gradient identification (LGI) and gradient direction alignment (GDA). LGI dynamically selects a set of directionally consistent client gradients to construct a leader gradient that captures the global convergence trend. GDA employs a direction-aware regularization to align each client's gradient with the leader gradient, thereby mitigating inter-device gradient directional inconsistency and enhancing model convergence. We evaluate GAPSL on a prototype computing testbed. Extensive experiments demonstrate that GAPSL consistently outperforms state-of-the-art benchmarks in training accuracy and latency.
title GAPSL: A Gradient-Aligned Parallel Split Learning on Heterogeneous Data
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.18540