EUROPT 2025
Abstract Submission

51. Solving 10,000-Dimensional Optimization Problems Using Inaccurate Function Values: An Old Algorithm

Invited abstract in session MB-1: Advances in Large-Scale Derivative-Free Optimization , stream Zeroth and first-order optimization methods.

Monday, 10:30-12:30
Room: B100/1001

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Zaikun Zhang
School of Mathematics, Sun Yat-sen University

Abstract

We reintroduce a derivative-free subspace optimization framework originating from Chapter 5 of [Z. Zhang, On Derivative-Free Optimization Methods, PhD thesis, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 2012 (supervisor Ya-xiang Yuan)]. At each iteration, the framework defines a low-dimensional subspace based on an approximate gradient, and then solves a subproblem in this subspace to generate a new iterate. We sketch the global convergence and worst-case complexity analysis of the framework, elaborate on its implementation, and present some numerical results on problems with dimension as high as 10,000.

The same framework was presented by Zhang during ICCOPT 2013 in Lisbon under the title "A Derivative-Free Optimization Algorithm with Low-Dimensional Subspace Techniques for Large-Scale Problems", although it remained nearly unknown to the community until very recently. An algorithm following this framework named NEWUOAs was implemented by Zhang in MATLAB in 2011 (https://github.com/newuoas/newuoas), ported to Modula-3 in 2016 by M. Nystroem, a Principle Engineer at the Intel Corporation, and made available in the open-source package CM3 (https://github.com/modula3/cm3/blob/master/caltech-other/newuoa/src/NewUOAs.m3). NEWUOAs has been used by Intel in the design of chips, including its flagship product Atom P5900.

Keywords

Status: accepted


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