We consider the problem of minimizing an objective function without any derivative information. Such optimization is called zeroth-order, derivative-free, or black-box optimization. When the problem dimension is large-scale, the existing zeroth-order state-of-the-arts often suffer the curse of dimensionality. In this talk, we explore a novel compressible gradients assumption and propose two new methods, namely ZORO and SCOBO, for high-dimensional zeroth-order optimization. In particular, ZORO uses evaluations of the objective function and SCOBO uses only comparison information between points. Furthermore, we propose a block coordinate descent algorithm, coined ZO-BCD, for ultra-high-dimensional settings. We show the query complexities of ZORO, SCOBO, and ZO-BCD are only logarithmically dependent on the problem dimension. Numerical experiments show that the proposed methods outperform the state-of-the-arts on both synthetic and real datasets.

22 Apr 2021
10:30am - 12:00pm
Where
https://hkust.zoom.us/j/99988827320 (Passcode: hkust)
Speakers/Performers
Prof. HanQin CAI
UCLA
Organizer(S)
Department of Mathematics
Contact/Enquiries
Payment Details
Audience
Alumni, Faculty and staff, PG students, UG students
Language(s)
English
Other Events
10 Oct 2025
Seminar, Lecture, Talk
IAS / School of Science Joint Lecture - Use of Large Animal Models to Investigate Brain Diseases
Abstract Genetically modified animal models have been extensively used to investigate the pathogenesis of age-dependent neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer (AD), Parkinson (PD), Hunti...
14 Jul 2025
Seminar, Lecture, Talk
IAS / School of Science Joint Lecture - Boron Clusters
Abstract The study of carbon clusters led to the discoveries of fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, and graphene. Are there other elements that can form similar nanostructures? To answer this questio...