FedSLoP: Memory-Efficient Federated Learning with Low-Rank Gradient Projection

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: He, Yutong, Huang, Zhengyang, Geng, Jiahe
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author He, Yutong
Huang, Zhengyang
Geng, Jiahe
author_facet He, Yutong
Huang, Zhengyang
Geng, Jiahe
contents Federated learning enables a population of clients to collaboratively train machine learning models without exchanging their raw data, but standard algorithms such as FedAvg suffer from slow convergence and high communication and memory costs in heterogeneous, resource-constrained environments. We introduce FedSLoP, a federated optimization algorithm that combines stochastic low-rank subspace projections of gradients, thereby reducing the dimension of communicated and stored updates while preserving optimization progress. On the theoretical side, we develop a detailed nonconvex convergence analysis under standard smoothness and bounded-variance assumptions, showing that FedSLoP is guaranteed to converge to a first-order stationary point at a rate of $O(1/\sqrt{NT})$. On the empirical side, we conduct extensive experiments on federated MNIST classification with heterogeneous data partitions, showing that FedSLoP substantially reduces communication volume and client-side memory while achieving competitive or better accuracy compared with FedAvg and representative sparse or low-rank baselines. Together, our results demonstrate that random subspace momentum methods such as FedSLoP provide a principled and effective approach to communication- and memory-efficient federated learning. Codes are available at: https://github.com/pkumelon/FedSLoP.git.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_24012
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle FedSLoP: Memory-Efficient Federated Learning with Low-Rank Gradient Projection
He, Yutong
Huang, Zhengyang
Geng, Jiahe
Machine Learning
Optimization and Control
90C26
Federated learning enables a population of clients to collaboratively train machine learning models without exchanging their raw data, but standard algorithms such as FedAvg suffer from slow convergence and high communication and memory costs in heterogeneous, resource-constrained environments. We introduce FedSLoP, a federated optimization algorithm that combines stochastic low-rank subspace projections of gradients, thereby reducing the dimension of communicated and stored updates while preserving optimization progress. On the theoretical side, we develop a detailed nonconvex convergence analysis under standard smoothness and bounded-variance assumptions, showing that FedSLoP is guaranteed to converge to a first-order stationary point at a rate of $O(1/\sqrt{NT})$. On the empirical side, we conduct extensive experiments on federated MNIST classification with heterogeneous data partitions, showing that FedSLoP substantially reduces communication volume and client-side memory while achieving competitive or better accuracy compared with FedAvg and representative sparse or low-rank baselines. Together, our results demonstrate that random subspace momentum methods such as FedSLoP provide a principled and effective approach to communication- and memory-efficient federated learning. Codes are available at: https://github.com/pkumelon/FedSLoP.git.
title FedSLoP: Memory-Efficient Federated Learning with Low-Rank Gradient Projection
topic Machine Learning
Optimization and Control
90C26
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.24012