AAAI 2024technical3 citations

Communication Efficient Distributed Newton Method over Unreliable Networks

Ming Wen, Chengchang Liu, Yuedong Xu

Abstract

Distributed optimization in resource constrained devices demands both communication efficiency and fast convergence rates. Newton-type methods are getting preferable due to their superior convergence rates compared to the first-order methods. In this paper, we study a new problem in regard to the second-order distributed optimization over unreliable networks. The working devices are power-limited or operate in unfavorable wireless channels, experiencing packet losses during their uplink transmission to the server. Our scenario is very common in real-world and leads to instability of classical distributed optimization methods especially the second-order methods because of their sensitivity to the imprecision of local Hessian matrices. To achieve robustness to high packet loss, communication efficiency and fast convergence rates, we propose a novel distributed second-order method, called RED-New (Packet loss Resilient Distributed Approximate Newton). Each iteration of RED-New comprises two rounds of light-weight and lossy transmissions, in which the server aggregates the local information with a new developed scaling strategy. We prove the linear-quadratic convergence rate of RED-New. Experimental results demonstrate its advantage over first-order and second-order baselines, and its tolerance to packet loss rate ranging from 5% to 40%.

BibTeX
@article{Wen_Liu_Xu_2024, title={Communication Efficient Distributed Newton Method over Unreliable Networks}, volume={38}, url={https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AAAI/article/view/29513}, DOI={10.1609/aaai.v38i14.29513}, abstractNote={Distributed optimization in resource constrained devices demands both communication efficiency and fast convergence rates. Newton-type methods are getting preferable due to their superior convergence rates compared to the first-order methods. In this paper, we study a new problem in regard to the second-order distributed optimization over unreliable networks. The working devices are power-limited or operate in unfavorable wireless channels, experiencing packet losses during their uplink transmission to the server. Our scenario is very common in real-world and leads to instability of classical distributed optimization methods especially the second-order methods because of their sensitivity to the imprecision of local Hessian matrices. To achieve robustness to high packet loss, communication efficiency and fast convergence rates, we propose a novel distributed second-order method, called RED-New (Packet loss Resilient Distributed Approximate Newton). Each iteration of RED-New comprises two rounds of light-weight and lossy transmissions, in which the server aggregates the local information with a new developed scaling strategy. We prove the linear-quadratic convergence rate of RED-New. Experimental results demonstrate its advantage over first-order and second-order baselines, and its tolerance to packet loss rate ranging from 5% to 40%.}, number={14}, journal={Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence}, author={Wen, Ming and Liu, Chengchang and Xu, Yuedong}, year={2024}, month={Mar.}, pages={15832-15840} }