mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Neural Stochastic Dual Dynamic Programming

arXiv 2112.00874 ↗First posted 1 Dec 2021cs.LG stat.MLcited by 6

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Abstract (arXiv)

Stochastic dual dynamic programming (SDDP) is a state-of-the-art method for solving multi-stage stochastic optimization, widely used for modeling real-world process optimization tasks. Unfortunately, SDDP has a worst-case complexity that scales exponentially in the number of decision variables, which severely limits applicability to only low dimensional problems. To overcome this limitation, we extend SDDP by introducing a trainable neural model that learns to map problem instances to a piece-wise linear value function within intrinsic low-dimension space, which is architected specifically to interact with a base SDDP solver, so that can accelerate optimization performance on new instances. The proposed Neural Stochastic Dual Dynamic Programming (nu-SDDP) continually self-improves by solving successive problems. An empirical investigation demonstrates that nu-SDDP can significantly reduce problem solving cost without sacrificing solution quality over competitors such as SDDP and reinforcement learning algorithms, across a range of synthetic and real-world process optimization problems.

Key facts. Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 19 of its 58 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 1 Dec 2021.

Builds on

19 of 58 references.

References · 19

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7 more
  1. 2019Learning to Plan in High Dimensions via Neural Exploration-Exploitation Treescited by 18
  2. 2019Meta Reinforcement Learning with Task Embedding and Shared Policycited by 15
  3. 2018VPE: Variational Policy Embedding for Transfer Reinforcement Learningcited by 8
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  6. 2019Complexity of Stochastic Dual Dynamic Programmingcited by 2
  7. 2020Randomized Progressive Hedging methods for Multi-stage Stochastic Programmingcited by 1

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Cited by year

Citing papers per year: 2022: 3; 2023: 1; 2024: 1; 2025: 1.

6 papers.