arXiv:2503.17353cs.LGcs.AI2025-03

NdLinear让神经网络直接处理多维数据,大幅减少参数量。

NdLinear: Preserving Multi-Dimensional Structure for Parameter-Efficient Neural Networks

  • 直接在张量上操作,无需展平输入数据
  • 参数量减少可达9倍,推理速度显著提升
  • 适合需要高效模型的视觉、语言等多维任务

在深度学习中,处理多维输入(如图像、医学影像和时间序列)通常需要将其展平。本文提出NdLinear,一种可直接作用于张量的线性层替代方案,无需展平。通过沿各维度分别施加变换,NdLinear保留了原始数据结构,实现显著的参数压缩,通常达到数量级减少,且内存开销极小。理论证明,NdLinear通过结构化Tucker分解保持表达能力,并维持VC维的缩放特性。大量实验表明,其在视觉、语言、时间序列和表格任务中均实现显著参数缩减与快速推理。例如,NdLinear-LoRA在语言推理任务中使用最多9倍更少的参数即可达到或超越标准LoRA性能。在CNN、RNN、Transformer和MLP上的测试一致验证了其效率优势。尽管在轴间耦合任务中表现受限,但通过原生处理N维数据,NdLinear为构建高效神经架构提供了理论扎实且实用的组件。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

In deep learning, processing multidimensional inputs (e.g., images, medical scans, and time series) is an important task that often requires flattening the inputs. We introduce $\mathit{NdLinear}$, a drop-in replacement for linear layers that operates directly on tensors, requiring no flattening. By applying transformations separately along each dimension, NdLinear preserves native data structure while achieving dramatic parameter reductions, often by orders of magnitude, with minimal memory overhead. We prove NdLinear maintains expressivity through structured Tucker decomposition while preserving VC-dimension scaling. Extensive experiments demonstrate NdLinear's capacity to achieve significant parameter reductions with substantial wall-clock efficiency gains and minimal memory overhead. For instance, our $\mathit{NdLinear-LoRA}$ matches or exceeds standard LoRA on language reasoning tasks using up to $9\times$ fewer parameters. Experiments across CNNs, RNNs, Transformers, and MLPs on vision, language, time-series, and tabular tasks consistently demonstrate NdLinear's efficiency gains. While excelling at axis-separable tasks, NdLinear has limitations with entangled spatial interactions. By processing data in its original N-dimensional form, NdLinear provides a theoretically grounded, practical component for building more efficient neural architectures.

神经网络参数效率张量操作结构压缩

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