DLoRA: Distributed Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning Solution for Large Language Model

AbstractTo enhance the performance of large language models (LLM) on downstream tasks, one solution is to fine-tune certain LLM parameters and make them better align with the characteristics of the training dataset. This process is commonly known as parameter-efficient fine-tuning (PEFT). Due to the scale of LLM, PEFT operations are usually executed in the public environment (e.g., cloud server). This necessitates sharing sensitive user data across public environments, thereby raising potential privacy concerns. To tackle these challenges, we propose a distributed PEFT framework called DLoRA. DLoRA enables scalable PEFT operations to be performed collaboratively between the cloud and user devices. Coupled with the proposed Kill and Revive algorithm, the evaluation results demonstrate that DLoRA can significantly reduce the computation and communication workload over user devices while achieving superior accuracy and privacy protection.