arXiv:2508.00960cs.LGcs.AI2025-08

提出新型并行策略,让大模型训练省电近一半。

A Parallel Alternative for Energy-Efficient Neural Network Training and Inferencing

  • 用伪并行替代传统张量并行,降低计算和通信开销。
  • 实测在256块GPU上训练前馈网络,能耗减少约50%。
  • 小规模设备也能达到大规模传统方法的训练效果,适合绿色计算场景。

大规模神经网络训练与推理的能效问题是可持续机器学习发展的关键挑战。本文提出一种名为‘伪并行’(phantom parallelism)的替代策略,旨在最小化传统张量并行这一最耗能组件的净能耗。研究以前馈网络架构为范例,开展初步但全面的方法原理验证。我们推导了新的前向与反向传播算子,并将其作为自定义autograd操作集成至端到端的伪并行训练流水线中,与传统张量并行方案对比其并行性能与能效。理论分析预测更低的带宽与浮点运算量,并在最多256块GPU上的实验结果证实了这些优势。实验显示,使用该伪并行方法训练前馈网络(FFNs)时,能耗相比传统张量并行方法降低约50%。此外,该方法可在更少的GPU数量上训练更小的伪模型,达到与在更多GPU上训练更大张量并行模型相当的损失水平,展现出更大的节能潜力。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Energy efficiency of training and inferencing with large neural network models is a critical challenge facing the future of sustainable large-scale machine learning workloads. This paper introduces an alternative strategy, called phantom parallelism, to minimize the net energy consumption of traditional tensor (model) parallelism, the most energy-inefficient component of large neural network training. The approach is presented in the context of feed-forward network architectures as a preliminary, but comprehensive, proof-of-principle study of the proposed methodology. We derive new forward and backward propagation operators for phantom parallelism, implement them as custom autograd operations within an end-to-end phantom parallel training pipeline and compare its parallel performance and energy-efficiency against those of conventional tensor parallel training pipelines. Formal analyses that predict lower bandwidth and FLOP counts are presented with supporting empirical results on up to 256 GPUs that corroborate these gains. Experiments are shown to deliver approximately 50% reduction in the energy consumed to train FFNs using the proposed phantom parallel approach when compared with conventional tensor parallel methods. Additionally, the proposed approach is shown to train smaller phantom models to the same model loss on smaller GPU counts as larger tensor parallel models on larger GPU counts offering the possibility for even greater energy savings.

能效优化并行计算神经网络绿色AI

Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。