Provable Convergence Bounds for Hybrid Dynamical Sampling and Optimization
Matthew X. Burns Qingyuan Hou Michael Huang
Analog dynamical accelerators (DXs) are a growing sub-field in computer architecture research, offering order-of-magnitude gains in power efficiency and latency over traditional digital methods in several machine learning, optimization, and sampling tasks. However, limited-capacity accelerators require hybrid analog/digital algorithms to solve real-world problems, commonly using large-neighborhood local search (LNLS) frameworks. Unlike fully digital algorithms, hybrid LNLS has no non-asymptotic convergence guarantees and no principled hyperparameter selection schemes, particularly limiting cross-device training and inference.


In this work, we provide non-asymptotic convergence guarantees for hybrid LNLS by reducing to block Langevin Diffusion (BLD) algorithms.
Adapting tools from classical sampling theory, we prove exponential KL-divergence convergence for randomized and cyclic block selection strategies using ideal DXs. With finite device variation, we provide explicit bounds on the 2-Wasserstein bias in terms of step duration, noise strength, and function parameters. Our BLD model provides a key link between established theory and novel computing platforms, and our theoretical results provide a closed-form expression linking device variation, algorithm hyperparameters, and performance.
langevin, accelerators, sampling, optimization, diffusion, analog computing
We provide novel non-asymptotic convergence rates for a class of hybrid analog-digital algorithms for dynamics-accelerated activation sampling and inference.