arXiv:2509.25913cs.CL2025-09被引 6

用核回归新视角重设计MoE路由,无需额外成本提升性能

Understanding the Mixture-of-Experts with Nadaraya-Watson Kernel

  • 将MoE与核回归统一建模,提出基于FFN的KERN路由函数
  • 在多个LLM任务中验证,性能优于传统Softmax路由
  • 推荐使用ReLU和ℓ2归一化,适合追求高效模型的开发者

混合专家(MoE)已成为当前先进大语言模型的核心架构。传统MoE依赖Softmax作为路由评分函数,这一设计从早期模型沿用至今,被视为标准实践。然而,将路由权重投影到概率单纯形的必要性仍是一个未经质疑的假设,而非严谨的设计选择。本文重新审视经典Nadaraya-Watson回归,发现MoE与之具有相同的数学形式。进一步表明,前馈网络(FFN)和MoE均可视为Nadaraya-Watson回归的特例,其中核函数对应输出层输入神经元。受此启发,我们提出零额外成本的核激励路由(KERN),一种类似FFN的路由函数,作为Softmax的替代方案。实验表明,该路由函数可统一Sigmoid与Softmax路由。基于对FFN实现的经验与规范,建议在KERN中采用ReLU激活和ℓ2归一化。在MoE及大语言模型上的全面实验验证了所提方法的有效性。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) has become a cornerstone in recent state-of-the-art large language models (LLMs). Traditionally, MoE relies on $\mathrm{Softmax}$ as the router score function to aggregate expert output, a designed choice that has persisted from the earliest MoE models to modern LLMs, and is now widely regarded as standard practice. However, the necessity of using $\mathrm{Softmax}$ to project router weights into a probability simplex remains an unchallenged assumption rather than a principled design choice. In this work, we first revisit the classical Nadaraya-Watson regression and observe that MoE shares the same mathematical formulation as Nadaraya-Watson regression. Furthermore, we show that both feed-forward neural network (FFN) and MoE can be interpreted as a special case of Nadaraya-Watson regression, where the kernel function corresponds to the input neurons of the output layer. Motivated by these insights, we propose the \textbf{zero-additional-cost} Kernel Inspired Router with Normalization (KERN), an FFN-style router function, as an alternative to $\mathrm{Softmax}$. We demonstrate that this router generalizes both $\mathrm{Sigmoid}$- and $\mathrm{Softmax}$-based routers. \textbf{Based on empirical observations and established practices in FFN implementation, we recommend the use of $\mathrm{ReLU}$ activation and $\ell_2$-normalization in $\mathrm{KERN}$ router function.} Comprehensive experiments in MoE and LLM validate the effectiveness of the proposed FFN-style router function \methodNorm.

MoE路由机制核回归大模型

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