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Main Authors: Kim, Dongwon, Lee, Gyuejeong
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.02143
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author Kim, Dongwon
Lee, Gyuejeong
author_facet Kim, Dongwon
Lee, Gyuejeong
contents Personalized federated learning (pFL) aims to adapt models to client specific data distributions, yet it often fails to reliably preserve personalized information. Local training is hindered by high variance gradients induced by limited and heterogeneous client data, while aggregation further distorts client specific optimization directions. To address these challenges, we propose pFLAlign, a gradient alignment framework to maintain client specific information during both local training and aggregation. pFLAlign consists of two complementary mechanisms: one adapts local gradient directions to reduce variance during client side optimization, and the other mitigates aggregation induced distortion by realigning the global model with each client's personalized direction. Theoretically, we derive pFLAlign from a PAC Bayesian analysis, which reveals how personalized gradient alignment preserves client specific information. Our experiments and ablation studies show that pFLAlign consistently improves personalization performance and training stability, achieving state of the art results.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_02143
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publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Personalized Federated Learning for Gradient Alignment
Kim, Dongwon
Lee, Gyuejeong
Machine Learning
Personalized federated learning (pFL) aims to adapt models to client specific data distributions, yet it often fails to reliably preserve personalized information. Local training is hindered by high variance gradients induced by limited and heterogeneous client data, while aggregation further distorts client specific optimization directions. To address these challenges, we propose pFLAlign, a gradient alignment framework to maintain client specific information during both local training and aggregation. pFLAlign consists of two complementary mechanisms: one adapts local gradient directions to reduce variance during client side optimization, and the other mitigates aggregation induced distortion by realigning the global model with each client's personalized direction. Theoretically, we derive pFLAlign from a PAC Bayesian analysis, which reveals how personalized gradient alignment preserves client specific information. Our experiments and ablation studies show that pFLAlign consistently improves personalization performance and training stability, achieving state of the art results.
title Personalized Federated Learning for Gradient Alignment
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.02143