Integrating Independent Layer-Wise Rank Selection with Low-Rank SVD Training for Model Compression: A Theory-Driven Approach

In recent years, with the rise of large language models, model sizes have grown dramatically, garnering attention for their remarkable performance but also raising concerns about the substantial computational and communication resources they require. This has created significant challenges in fine-tuning or re-training models on devices with limited computing and memory resources. Efficient model compression through low-rank factorization has emerged as a promising solution, offering a way to balance the tradeoff between compression ratio and prediction accuracy. However, existing approaches to low-rank selection often rely on trial-and-error methods to determine the optimal rank, lacking theoretical guidance and incurring high computational costs. Furthermore, these methods typically treat low-rank factorization as a post-training process, resulting in suboptimal compressed models. In this paper, we design a novel approach by integrating rank selection into the low-rank training process and performing independent layer-wise rank selection under the guidance of a theoretical loss error bound. Specifically, we first conduct a comprehensive theoretical analysis to quantify how low-rank approximations impact the training losses. Building on these insights, we develop an efficient layer-wise rank search algorithm and seamlessly incorporate it into low-rank singular value decomposition (SVD) training. Our evaluation results on benchmark datasets demonstrate that our approach can achieve high prediction accuracy while delivering significant compression performance. Furthermore, our solution is generic and can be extended to broader learning models.