An Oblivious Stochastic Composite Optimization Algorithm for Eigenvalue Optimization Problems

In this work, we revisit the problem of solving large-scale semidefinite programs using randomized first-order methods and stochastic smoothing. We introduce two oblivious stochastic mirror descent algorithms based on a complementary composite setting. One algorithm is designed for non-smooth objectives, while an accelerated version is tailored for smooth objectives. Remarkably, both algorithms work without prior knowledge of the Lipschitz constant or smoothness of the objective function. For the non-smooth case with $\mathcal{M}-$bounded oracles, we prove a convergence rate of $ O( {\mathcal{M}}/{\sqrt{T}} ) $. For the $L$-smooth case with a feasible set bounded by $D$, we derive a convergence rate of $ O( {L^2 D^2}/{(T^{2}\sqrt{T})} + {(D_0^2+\sigma^2)}/{\sqrt{T}} )$, where $D_0$ is the starting distance to an optimal solution, and $ \sigma^2$ is the stochastic oracle variance. These rates had only been obtained so far by either assuming prior knowledge of the Lipschitz constant or the starting distance to an optimal solution. We further show how to extend our framework to relative scale and demonstrate the efficiency and robustness of our methods on large scale semidefinite programs.

Optimal Algorithms for Stochastic Complementary Composite Minimization

Inspired by regularization techniques in statistics and machine learning, we study complementary composite minimization in the stochastic setting. This problem corresponds to the minimization of the sum of a (weakly) smooth function endowed with a stochastic first-order oracle, and a structured uniformly convex (possibly nonsmooth and non-Lipschitz) regularization term. Despite intensive work on closely related settings, prior to our work no complexity bounds for this problem were known. We close this gap by providing novel excess risk bounds, both in expectation and with high probability. Our algorithms are nearly optimal, which we prove via novel lower complexity bounds for this class of problems. We conclude by providing numerical results comparing our methods to the state of the art.