# De-VertiFL: A Solution for Decentralized Vertical Federated Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.06127 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.06127/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 10 of its 16 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 8 Oct 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 10 of 10)

- [Flower: A Friendly Federated Learning Research Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.14390/) (2020)
- [Federated Machine Learning: Concept and Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.04885/) (2019)
- [Decentralized Federated Learning: Fundamentals, State of the Art, Frameworks, Trends, and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.08413/) (2022)
- [Vertical Federated Learning: Concepts, Advances and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.12814/) (2022)
- [Parallel Distributed Logistic Regression for Vertical Federated Learning without Third-Party Coordinator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.09824/) (2019)
- [SplitNN-driven Vertical Partitioning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.04137/) (2020)
- [Federated Doubly Stochastic Kernel Learning for Vertically Partitioned Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.06197/) (2020)
- [PyVertical: A Vertical Federated Learning Framework for Multi-headed SplitNN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.00489/) (2021)
- [Asymmetrical Vertical Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.07427/) (2020)
- [Analyzing the Robustness of Decentralized Horizontal and Vertical Federated Learning Architectures in a Non-IID Scenario](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.11061/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Federated Learning (FL), introduced in 2016, was designed to enhance data privacy in collaborative model training environments. Among the FL paradigm, horizontal FL, where clients share the same set of features but different data samples, has been extensively studied in both centralized and decentralized settings. In contrast, Vertical Federated Learning (VFL), which is crucial in real-world decentralized scenarios where clients possess different, yet sensitive, data about the same entity, remains underexplored. Thus, this work introduces De-VertiFL, a novel solution for training models in a decentralized VFL setting. De-VertiFL contributes by introducing a new network architecture distribution, an innovative knowledge exchange scheme, and a distributed federated training process. Specifically, De-VertiFL enables the sharing of hidden layer outputs among federation clients, allowing participants to benefit from intermediate computations, thereby improving learning efficiency. De-VertiFL has been evaluated using a variety of well-known datasets, including both image and tabular data, across binary and multiclass classification tasks. The results demonstrate that De-VertiFL generally surpasses state-of-the-art methods in F1-score performance, while maintaining a decentralized and privacy-preserving framework.