Robust, randomized preconditioning for kernel ridge regression

This paper introduces two randomized preconditioning techniques for robustly solving kernel ridge regression (KRR) problems with a medium to large number of data points ($10⁴ \leq N \leq 10^7$). The first method, RPCholesky preconditioning, is capable of accurately solving the full-data KRR problem in $O(N^2)$ arithmetic operations, assuming sufficiently rapid polynomial decay of the kernel matrix eigenvalues. The second method, KRILL preconditioning, offers an accurate solution to a restricted version of the KRR problem involving $k \ll N$ selected data centers at a cost of $O((N + k²⁾ k \log k)$ operations. The proposed methods solve a broad range of KRR problems and overcome the failure modes of previous KRR preconditioners, making them ideal for practical applications.