# Learning to Specialize: Joint Gating-Expert Training for Adaptive MoEs in Decentralized Settings

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08586 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.08586/

## Key facts

- Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Federated mixture-of-experts, one of 12 directions in Mixture-of-experts.
- Builds on 23 of its 34 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 14 Jun 2023.

## Placed in

- Mixture-of-experts / [Federated mixture-of-experts](https://mlsanity.com/moe/federated-mixture-of-experts/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 23 of 23)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [PaLM: Scaling Language Modeling with Pathways](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.02311/) (2022)
- [Outrageously Large Neural Networks: The Sparsely-Gated Mixture-of-Experts Layer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1701.06538/) (2017)
- [Switch Transformers: Scaling to Trillion Parameter Models with Simple and Efficient Sparsity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.03961/) (2021)
- [Federated Optimization in Heterogeneous Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.06127/) (2018)
- [Character-level Convolutional Networks for Text Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1509.01626/) (2015)
- [GShard: Scaling Giant Models with Conditional Computation and Automatic Sharding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.16668/) (2020)
- [Scaling Language Models: Methods, Analysis & Insights from Training Gopher](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.11446/) (2021)
- [TinyBERT: Distilling BERT for Natural Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.10351/) (2019)
- [Federated Learning on Non-IID Data Silos: An Experimental Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.02079/) (2021)
- [Reducing Activation Recomputation in Large Transformer Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.05198/) (2022)
- [Multimodal Contrastive Learning with LIMoE: the Language-Image Mixture of Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.02770/) (2022)
- [Branch-Train-Merge: Embarrassingly Parallel Training of Expert Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.03306/) (2022)
- [Federated Evaluation of On-device Personalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.10252/) (2019)
- [Salvaging Federated Learning by Local Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.04758/) (2020)
- [DEMix Layers: Disentangling Domains for Modular Language Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.05036/) (2021)
- [Taming Sparsely Activated Transformer with Stochastic Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.04260/) (2021)
- [Scalable Transfer Learning with Expert Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.13239/) (2020)
- [SpeechMoE: Scaling to Large Acoustic Models with Dynamic Routing Mixture of Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.03036/) (2021)
- [FedCV: A Federated Learning Framework for Diverse Computer Vision Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.11066/) (2021)
- [Federated Mixture of Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.06724/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [A Comprehensive Survey of Mixture-of-Experts: Algorithms, Theory, and Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.07137/) (2025)
- [pFedMoE: Data-Level Personalization with Mixture of Experts for Model-Heterogeneous Personalized Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.01350/) (2024)
- [Mixture of Experts Made Personalized: Federated Prompt Learning for Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.10114/) (2024)
- [Efficient Training of Large-Scale AI Models Through Federated Mixture-of-Experts: A System-Level Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.05685/) (2025)
- [Federated Inference: Toward Privacy-Preserving Collaborative and Incentivized Model Serving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.02214/) (2026)
- [FedCoE: Bridging Generalization and Personalization via Federated Coordinated Dual-level MoEs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.21264/) (2026)
- [Fisher-Routed Mixture of Experts for Federated Class-Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.28835/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Mixture-of-Experts (MoEs) achieve scalability by dynamically activating subsets of their components. Yet, understanding how expertise emerges through joint training of gating mechanisms and experts remains incomplete, especially in scenarios without clear task partitions. Motivated by inference costs and data heterogeneity, we study how joint training of gating functions and experts can dynamically allocate domain-specific expertise across multiple underlying data distributions. As an outcome of our framework, we develop an instance tailored specifically to decentralized training scenarios, introducing textitDynamically Decentralized Orchestration of MoEs or textttDDOME. textttDDOME leverages heterogeneity emerging from distributional shifts across decentralized data sources to specialize experts dynamically. By integrating a pretrained common expert to inform a gating function, textttDDOME achieves personalized expert subset selection on-the-fly, facilitating just-in-time personalization. We empirically validate textttDDOME within a Federated Learning (FL) context: textttDDOME attains from 4% up to an 24% accuracy improvement over state-of-the-art FL baselines in image and text classification tasks, while maintaining competitive zero-shot generalization capabilities. Furthermore, we provide theoretical insights confirming that the joint gating-experts training is critical for achieving meaningful expert specialization.