A Sharp Convergence Rate for the Asynchronous Stochastic Gradient Descent

Abstract: We give a sharp convergence rate for the asynchronous stochastic gradient descent (ASGD) algorithms when the loss function is a perturbed quadratic function based on the stochastic modified equations introduced in [An et al. Stochastic modified equations for the asynchronous stochastic gradient descent, arXiv:1805.08244]. We prove that when the number of local workers is larger than the expected staleness, then ASGD is more efficient than stochastic gradient descent. Our theoretical result also suggests that longer delays result in slower convergence rate. Besides, the learning rate cannot be smaller than a threshold inversely proportional to the expected staleness.