Checkpoint Merging via Bayesian Optimization in LLM Pretraining
Deyuan Liu Zecheng Wang Bingning Wang Weipeng Chen Chunshan Li Zhiying Tu Dianhui Chu Bo Li Dianbo Sui
The rapid proliferation of large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-4 and
Gemini underscores the intense demand for resources during their training
processes, posing significant challenges due to substantial computational and
environmental costs. To alleviate this issue, we propose checkpoint merging in
pretraining LLM. This method utilizes LLM checkpoints with shared training
trajectories, and is rooted in an extensive search space exploration for the
best merging weight via Bayesian optimization. Through various experiments, we
demonstrate that: (1) Our proposed methodology exhibits the capacity to augment
pretraining, presenting an opportunity akin to obtaining substantial benefits
at minimal cost; (2) Our proposed methodology, despite requiring a given
held-out dataset, still demonstrates robust generalization capabilities across
diverse domains, a pivotal aspect in pretraining.