# Fast FixMatch: Faster Semi-Supervised Learning with Curriculum Batch Size

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.03469 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.03469/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 52 of its 70 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 7 Sep 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 52)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [A Simple Framework for Contrastive Learning of Visual Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.05709/) (2020)
- [ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.0575/) (2014)
- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [Momentum Contrast for Unsupervised Visual Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.05722/) (2019)
- [mixup: Beyond Empirical Risk Minimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.09412/) (2017)
- [Federated Optimization in Heterogeneous Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.06127/) (2018)
- [Improved Techniques for Training GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.03498/) (2016)
- [CutMix: Regularization Strategy to Train Strong Classifiers with Localizable Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.04899/) (2019)
- [iCaRL: Incremental Classifier and Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.07725/) (2016)
- [Improved Baselines with Momentum Contrastive Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.04297/) (2020)
- [RandAugment: Practical automated data augmentation with a reduced search space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.13719/) (2019)
- [FixMatch: Simplifying Semi-Supervised Learning with Consistency and Confidence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.07685/) (2020)
- [Gradient Episodic Memory for Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.08840/) (2017)
- [Improved Regularization of Convolutional Neural Networks with Cutout](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.04552/) (2017)
- [Accurate, Large Minibatch SGD: Training ImageNet in 1 Hour](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.02677/) (2017)
- [MixMatch: A Holistic Approach to Semi-Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.02249/) (2019)
- [Big Self-Supervised Models are Strong Semi-Supervised Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.10029/) (2020)
- [Contrastive Multiview Coding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.05849/) (2019)
- [Unsupervised Data Augmentation for Consistency Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.12848/) (2019)
- [Temporal Ensembling for Semi-Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02242/) (2016)
- [Aligning Books and Movies: Towards Story-like Visual Explanations by Watching Movies and Reading Books](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.06724/) (2015)
- [Virtual Adversarial Training: A Regularization Method for Supervised and Semi-Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.03976/) (2017)
- [AugMix: A Simple Data Processing Method to Improve Robustness and Uncertainty](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.02781/) (2019)
- [AutoAugment: Learning Augmentation Policies from Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.09501/) (2018)
- [FlexMatch: Boosting Semi-Supervised Learning with Curriculum Pseudo Labeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.08263/) (2021)
- [Regularization With Stochastic Transformations and Perturbations for Deep Semi-Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.04586/) (2016)
- [Expert Gate: Lifelong Learning with a Network of Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.06194/) (2016)
- [ReMixMatch: Semi-Supervised Learning with Distribution Alignment and Augmentation Anchoring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.09785/) (2019)
- [On The Power of Curriculum Learning in Training Deep Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.03626/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [PCSR: Pseudo-label Consistency-Guided Sample Refinement for Noisy Correspondence Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.15623/) (2025)
- [SemSim: Revisiting Weak-to-Strong Consistency from a Semantic Similarity Perspective for Semi-supervised Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.13486/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Advances in Semi-Supervised Learning (SSL) have almost entirely closed the gap between SSL and Supervised Learning at a fraction of the number of labels. However, recent performance improvements have often come textitat the cost of significantly increased training computation. To address this, we propose Curriculum Batch Size (CBS), textitan unlabeled batch size curriculum which exploits the natural training dynamics of deep neural networks. A small unlabeled batch size is used in the beginning of training and is gradually increased to the end of training. A fixed curriculum is used regardless of dataset, model or number of epochs, and reduced training computations is demonstrated on all settings. We apply CBS, strong labeled augmentation, Curriculum Pseudo Labeling (CPL) citepFlexMatch to FixMatch citepFixMatch and term the new SSL algorithm Fast FixMatch. We perform an ablation study to show that strong labeled augmentation and/or CPL do not significantly reduce training computations, but, in synergy with CBS, they achieve optimal performance. Fast FixMatch also achieves substantially higher data utilization compared to previous state-of-the-art. Fast FixMatch achieves between 2.1× - 3.4× reduced training computations on CIFAR-10 with all but 40, 250 and 4000 labels removed, compared to vanilla FixMatch, while attaining the same cited state-of-the-art error rate citepFixMatch. Similar results are achieved for CIFAR-100, SVHN and STL-10. Finally, Fast MixMatch achieves between 2.6× - 3.3× reduced training computations in federated SSL tasks and online/streaming learning SSL tasks, which further demonstrate the generializbility of Fast MixMatch to different scenarios and tasks.