# Federated Learning with GAN-based Data Synthesis for Non-IID Clients

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.05507 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.05507/

## Key facts

- Cited by 25 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 26 of its 48 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Jun 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 26 of 26)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [mixup: Beyond Empirical Risk Minimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.09412/) (2017)
- [Fashion-MNIST: a Novel Image Dataset for Benchmarking Machine Learning Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.07747/) (2017)
- [Federated Optimization in Heterogeneous Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.06127/) (2018)
- [Improved Training of Wasserstein GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.00028/) (2017)
- [FixMatch: Simplifying Semi-Supervised Learning with Consistency and Confidence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.07685/) (2020)
- [Federated Learning with Non-IID Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.00582/) (2018)
- [Tackling the Objective Inconsistency Problem in Heterogeneous Federated Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.07481/) (2020)
- [Federated Learning on Non-IID Data Silos: An Experimental Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.02079/) (2021)
- [Conditional Image Synthesis With Auxiliary Classifier GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.09585/) (2016)
- [Federated Learning with Personalization Layers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.00818/) (2019)
- [An Efficient Framework for Clustered Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.04088/) (2020)
- [Federated Learning on Non-IID Data: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.06843/) (2021)
- [Think Locally, Act Globally: Federated Learning with Local and Global Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.01523/) (2020)
- [COVID-Net: A Tailored Deep Convolutional Neural Network Design for Detection of COVID-19 Cases from Chest X-Ray Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.09871/) (2020)
- [Communication-Efficient On-Device Machine Learning: Federated Distillation and Augmentation under Non-IID Private Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.11479/) (2018)
- [No Fear of Heterogeneity: Classifier Calibration for Federated Learning with Non-IID Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.05001/) (2021)
- [Differentially Private Generative Adversarial Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.06739/) (2018)
- [Federated Semi-Supervised Learning with Inter-Client Consistency & Disjoint Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.12097/) (2020)
- [FedMix: Approximation of Mixup under Mean Augmented Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.00233/) (2021)
- [XOR Mixup: Privacy-Preserving Data Augmentation for One-Shot Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.05148/) (2020)
- [Hybrid-FL for Wireless Networks: Cooperative Learning Mechanism Using Non-IID Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.07210/) (2019)
- [Mix2FLD: Downlink Federated Learning After Uplink Federated Distillation With Two-Way Mixup](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.09801/) (2020)
- [FedDPGAN: Federated Differentially Private Generative Adversarial Networks Framework for the Detection of COVID-19 Pneumonia](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.12581/) (2021)
- [FedCD: Improving Performance in non-IID Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.09637/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 25 of 25)

- [FedFA: Federated Learning with Feature Anchors to Align Features and Classifiers for Heterogeneous Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09299/) (2022)
- [Phoenix: A Federated Generative Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.04098/) (2023)
- [A Survey of What to Share in Federated Learning: Perspectives on Model Utility, Privacy Leakage, and Communication Efficiency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.10655/) (2023)
- [DReS-FL: Dropout-Resilient Secure Federated Learning for Non-IID Clients via Secret Data Sharing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02680/) (2022)
- [FedBiP: Heterogeneous One-Shot Federated Learning with Personalized Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.04810/) (2024)
- [Feature Matching Data Synthesis for Non-IID Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04761/) (2023)
- [Non-IID data in Federated Learning: A Survey with Taxonomy, Metrics, Methods, Frameworks and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.12377/) (2024)
- [FedCiR: Client-Invariant Representation Learning for Federated Non-IID Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.15786/) (2023)
- [Understanding and Improving Model Averaging in Federated Learning on Heterogeneous Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.07845/) (2023)
- [A Systematic Review of Federated Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.16682/) (2024)
- [PS-FedGAN: An Efficient Federated Learning Framework Based on Partially Shared Generative Adversarial Networks For Data Privacy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.11437/) (2023)
- [FedDistill: Global Model Distillation for Local Model De-Biasing in Non-IID Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.09210/) (2024)
- [Towards Harnessing the Collaborative Power of Large and Small Models for Domain Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.17421/) (2025)
- [Towards Open Federated Learning Platforms: Survey and Vision from Technical and Legal Perspectives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.02140/) (2023)
- [PFL-GAN: When Client Heterogeneity Meets Generative Models in Personalized Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.12454/) (2023)
- [Synthetic Data Aided Federated Learning Using Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.05174/) (2024)
- [Personalized Privacy-Preserving Framework for Cross-Silo Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.12020/) (2023)
- [Synthetic data shuffling accelerates the convergence of federated learning under data heterogeneity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.13263/) (2023)
- [FedBM: Stealing Knowledge from Pre-trained Language Models for Heterogeneous Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.16832/) (2025)
- [Data Collaboration Analysis applied to Compound Datasets and the Introduction of Projection data to Non-IID settings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.00280/) (2023)
- [Federated Learning for Traffic Flow Prediction with Synthetic Data Augmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.08460/) (2024)
- [FedCAR: Cross-client Adaptive Re-weighting for Generative Models in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.11463/) (2024)
- [Diffusion Model-Based Data Synthesis Aided Federated Semi-Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.02219/) (2025)
- [Federated Learning for Large-Scale Cloud Robotic Manipulation: Opportunities and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.17903/) (2025)
- [FedASAP: Activation Statistics-driven Structured Adaptive Pruning for Efficient Personalized Federated Learning for Lesion Segmentation on brain MRI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.19042/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Federated learning (FL) has recently emerged as a popular privacy-preserving collaborative learning paradigm. However, it suffers from the non-independent and identically distributed (non-IID) data among clients. In this paper, we propose a novel framework, named Synthetic Data Aided Federated Learning (SDA-FL), to resolve this non-IID challenge by sharing synthetic data. Specifically, each client pretrains a local generative adversarial network (GAN) to generate differentially private synthetic data, which are uploaded to the parameter server (PS) to construct a global shared synthetic dataset. To generate confident pseudo labels for the synthetic dataset, we also propose an iterative pseudo labeling mechanism performed by the PS. A combination of the local private dataset and synthetic dataset with confident pseudo labels leads to nearly identical data distributions among clients, which improves the consistency among local models and benefits the global aggregation. Extensive experiments evidence that the proposed framework outperforms the baseline methods by a large margin in several benchmark datasets under both the supervised and semi-supervised settings.