Bounce: Reliable High-Dimensional Bayesian Optimization for Combinatorial and Mixed Spaces
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Abstract (arXiv)
Impactful applications such as materials discovery, hardware design, neural architecture search, or portfolio optimization require optimizing high-dimensional black-box functions with mixed and combinatorial input spaces. While Bayesian optimization has recently made significant progress in solving such problems, an in-depth analysis reveals that the current state-of-the-art methods are not reliable. Their performances degrade substantially when the unknown optima of the function do not have a certain structure. To fill the need for a reliable algorithm for combinatorial and mixed spaces, this paper proposes Bounce that relies on a novel map of various variable types into nested embeddings of increasing dimensionality. Comprehensive experiments show that Bounce reliably achieves and often even improves upon state-of-the-art performance on a variety of high-dimensional problems.
Key facts. Cited by 27 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 39 of its 85 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 2 Jul 2023.
Builds on
39 of 85 references.
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Citing papers per year: 2023: 1; 2024: 3; 2025: 13; 2026: 10.
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- 2024A survey and benchmark of high-dimensional Bayesian optimization of discrete sequencescited by 22
- 2025Understanding High-Dimensional Bayesian Optimizationcited by 19
- 2025Return of the Latent Space COWBOYS: Re-thinking the use of VAEs for Bayesian Optimisation of Structured Spacescited by 13
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- 2023High-dimensional Bayesian Optimization with Group Testingcited by 5
- 2026PathWise: Planning through World Model for Automated Heuristic Design via Self-Evolving LLMscited by 5
- 2024Optimistic Games for Combinatorial Bayesian Optimization with Application to Protein Designcited by 4
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- 2026Do We Really Need to Approach the Entire Pareto Front in Many-Objective Bayesian Optimisation?cited by 2
- 2025Leveraging Axis-Aligned Subspaces for High-Dimensional Bayesian Optimization with Group Testingcited by 1
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- 2025Pushing the Limits of the Reactive Affine Shaker Algorithm to Higher Dimensionscited by 0
- 2025Weighted Euclidean Distance Matrices over Mixed Continuous and Categorical Inputs for Gaussian Process Modelscited by 0
- 2025Tree-Structured Parzen Estimator Can Solve Black-Box Combinatorial Optimization More Efficientlycited by 0
- 2025MOCA-HESP: Meta High-dimensional Bayesian Optimization for Combinatorial and Mixed Spaces via Hyper-ellipsoid Partitioningcited by 0
- 2026Regime-Adaptive Bayesian Optimization via Dirichlet Process Mixtures of Gaussian Processescited by 0
- 2026Certificate-Guided Pruning for Stochastic Lipschitz Optimizationcited by 0
- 2026SMOG: Scalable Meta-Learning for Multi-Objective Bayesian Optimizationcited by 0
- 2026mlr3mbo: Bayesian Optimization in Rcited by 0
- 2026Trajectory-Aware Best-Arm Identification for Local Search Allocation in Bayesian Optimization and Beyondcited by 0
- 2026Converge Then Diversify: Decoupling Convergence and Diversity in Multi-Objective Bayesian Optimisationcited by 0
- 2026Bayesian Optimization with Fisher Information Geometry: Gradient Bounds and Trust-Region Methodscited by 0
- 2026Bayesian Optimization with Fisher Information Geometry: Gradient Bounds and Trust-Region Methods25 Sep 2026
- 2026Converge Then Diversify: Decoupling Convergence and Diversity in Multi-Objective Bayesian Optimisation11 Sep 2026
- 2026Trajectory-Aware Best-Arm Identification for Local Search Allocation in Bayesian Optimization and Beyond29 May 2026
- 2026Do We Really Need to Approach the Entire Pareto Front in Many-Objective Bayesian Optimisation?10 Apr 2026
- 2026mlr3mbo: Bayesian Optimization in R31 Mar 2026
- 2026Personalized Image Generation via Human-in-the-loop Bayesian Optimization2 Feb 2026
- 2026SMOG: Scalable Meta-Learning for Multi-Objective Bayesian Optimization29 Jan 2026
- 2026PathWise: Planning through World Model for Automated Heuristic Design via Self-Evolving LLMs28 Jan 2026
- 2026Certificate-Guided Pruning for Stochastic Lipschitz Optimization28 Jan 2026
- 2026Regime-Adaptive Bayesian Optimization via Dirichlet Process Mixtures of Gaussian Processes27 Jan 2026
- 2025We Still Don't Understand High-Dimensional Bayesian Optimization28 Nov 2025
- 2025Omnipresent Yet Overlooked: Heat Kernels in Combinatorial Bayesian Optimization30 Oct 2025
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- 2025Bayes-Split-Edge: Bayesian Optimization for Constrained Collaborative Inference in Wireless Edge Systems27 Oct 2025
- 2025CoTune: Co-evolutionary Configuration Tuning29 Sep 2025
- 2025MOCA-HESP: Meta High-dimensional Bayesian Optimization for Combinatorial and Mixed Spaces via Hyper-ellipsoid Partitioning9 Aug 2025
- 2025Tree-Structured Parzen Estimator Can Solve Black-Box Combinatorial Optimization More Efficiently10 Jul 2025
- 2025Return of the Latent Space COWBOYS: Re-thinking the use of VAEs for Bayesian Optimisation of Structured Spaces5 Jul 2025
- 2025Bencher: Simple and Reproducible Benchmarking for Black-Box Optimization27 May 2025
- 2025Leveraging Axis-Aligned Subspaces for High-Dimensional Bayesian Optimization with Group Testing8 Apr 2025
- 2025Weighted Euclidean Distance Matrices over Mixed Continuous and Categorical Inputs for Gaussian Process Models4 Mar 2025
- 2025Pushing the Limits of the Reactive Affine Shaker Algorithm to Higher Dimensions18 Feb 2025
- 2025Understanding High-Dimensional Bayesian Optimization13 Feb 2025
- 2025Modeling All Response Surfaces in One for Conditional Search Spaces8 Jan 2025
- 2024Regional Expected Improvement for Efficient Trust Region Selection in High-Dimensional Bayesian Optimization16 Dec 2024
- 2024Optimistic Games for Combinatorial Bayesian Optimization with Application to Protein Design27 Sep 2024
- 2024A survey and benchmark of high-dimensional Bayesian optimization of discrete sequences7 Jun 2024
- 2023High-dimensional Bayesian Optimization with Group Testing5 Oct 2023
- 2024A survey and benchmark of high-dimensional Bayesian optimization of discrete sequencescited by 22
- 2025Understanding High-Dimensional Bayesian Optimizationcited by 19
- 2025Return of the Latent Space COWBOYS: Re-thinking the use of VAEs for Bayesian Optimisation of Structured Spacescited by 13
- 2025We Still Don't Understand High-Dimensional Bayesian Optimizationcited by 9
- 2023High-dimensional Bayesian Optimization with Group Testingcited by 5
- 2024Optimistic Games for Combinatorial Bayesian Optimization with Application to Protein Designcited by 4
- 2024Regional Expected Improvement for Efficient Trust Region Selection in High-Dimensional Bayesian Optimizationcited by 3
- 2025CoTune: Co-evolutionary Configuration Tuningcited by 2
- 2026Personalized Image Generation via Human-in-the-loop Bayesian Optimizationcited by 2
- 2026Do We Really Need to Approach the Entire Pareto Front in Many-Objective Bayesian Optimisation?cited by 2
- 2025Leveraging Axis-Aligned Subspaces for High-Dimensional Bayesian Optimization with Group Testingcited by 1
- 2025Bencher: Simple and Reproducible Benchmarking for Black-Box Optimizationcited by 1
12 most cited of 26 All 26 (JSON)
- 2026Bayesian Optimization with Fisher Information Geometry: Gradient Bounds and Trust-Region Methods25 Sep 2026
- 2026Converge Then Diversify: Decoupling Convergence and Diversity in Multi-Objective Bayesian Optimisation11 Sep 2026
- 2026Trajectory-Aware Best-Arm Identification for Local Search Allocation in Bayesian Optimization and Beyond29 May 2026
- 2026Do We Really Need to Approach the Entire Pareto Front in Many-Objective Bayesian Optimisation?10 Apr 2026
- 2026mlr3mbo: Bayesian Optimization in R31 Mar 2026
- 2026Personalized Image Generation via Human-in-the-loop Bayesian Optimization2 Feb 2026
- 2026SMOG: Scalable Meta-Learning for Multi-Objective Bayesian Optimization29 Jan 2026
- 2026Certificate-Guided Pruning for Stochastic Lipschitz Optimization28 Jan 2026
- 2026Regime-Adaptive Bayesian Optimization via Dirichlet Process Mixtures of Gaussian Processes27 Jan 2026
- 2025We Still Don't Understand High-Dimensional Bayesian Optimization28 Nov 2025
- 2025Omnipresent Yet Overlooked: Heat Kernels in Combinatorial Bayesian Optimization30 Oct 2025
- 2025Bayes-Split-Edge: Bayesian Optimization for Constrained Collaborative Inference in Wireless Edge Systems27 Oct 2025
12 newest of 26 All 26 (JSON)