# GeoLoRA: Geometric integration for parameter efficient fine-tuning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.18720 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.18720/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 21 of its 33 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Oct 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 21 of 21)

- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09685/) (2021)
- [GLUE: A Multi-Task Benchmark and Analysis Platform for Natural Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.07461/) (2018)
- [Parameter-Efficient Transfer Learning for NLP](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.00751/) (2019)
- [DreamBooth: Fine Tuning Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Subject-Driven Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.12242/) (2022)
- [DeBERTaV3: Improving DeBERTa using ELECTRA-Style Pre-Training with Gradient-Disentangled Embedding Sharing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.09543/) (2021)
- [BitFit: Simple Parameter-efficient Fine-tuning for Transformer-based Masked Language-models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.10199/) (2021)
- [AdapterFusion: Non-Destructive Task Composition for Transfer Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.00247/) (2020)
- [Channel Pruning for Accelerating Very Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.06168/) (2017)
- [Intrinsic Dimensionality Explains the Effectiveness of Language Model Fine-Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.13255/) (2020)
- [GaLore: Memory-Efficient LLM Training by Gradient Low-Rank Projection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03507/) (2024)
- [LoRA+: Efficient Low Rank Adaptation of Large Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.12354/) (2024)
- [Dynamic Network Surgery for Efficient DNNs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.04493/) (2016)
- [DyLoRA: Parameter Efficient Tuning of Pre-trained Models using Dynamic Search-Free Low-Rank Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.07558/) (2022)
- [Quantized Convolutional Neural Networks for Mobile Devices](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.06473/) (2015)
- [Pufferfish: Communication-efficient Models At No Extra Cost](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.03936/) (2021)
- [Initialization and Regularization of Factorized Neural Layers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.01029/) (2021)
- [Low-rank lottery tickets: finding efficient low-rank neural networks via matrix differential equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.13571/) (2022)
- [DoRA: Enhancing Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning with Dynamic Rank Distribution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.17357/) (2024)
- [Approximately Optimal Core Shapes for Tensor Decompositions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.03886/) (2023)
- [Federated Dynamical Low-Rank Training with Global Loss Convergence Guarantees](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.17887/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Dynamical Low-Rank Compression of Neural Networks with Robustness under Adversarial Attacks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.08022/) (2025)
- [A geometric framework for momentum-based optimizers for low-rank training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.17475/) (2025)
- [Compressing Vision Transformers in Geospatial Transfer Learning with Manifold-Constrained Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.08882/) (2026)
- [Geometry-Aware Bayesian Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning on the Stiefel Manifold via Stein Variational Gradient Descent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.08354/) (2026)
- [Stiefel-AdamW: Geometry-Aware AdamW for Linear Factorization Blocks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.21039/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) has become a widely used method for parameter-efficient fine-tuning of large-scale, pre-trained neural networks. However, LoRA and its extensions face several challenges, including the need for rank adaptivity, robustness, and computational efficiency during the fine-tuning process. We introduce GeoLoRA, a novel approach that addresses these limitations by leveraging dynamical low-rank approximation theory. GeoLoRA requires only a single backpropagation pass over the small-rank adapters, significantly reducing computational cost as compared to similar dynamical low-rank training methods and making it faster than popular baselines such as AdaLoRA. This allows GeoLoRA to efficiently adapt the allocated parameter budget across the model, achieving smaller low-rank adapters compared to heuristic methods like AdaLoRA and LoRA, while maintaining critical convergence, descent, and error-bound theoretical guarantees. The resulting method is not only more efficient but also more robust to varying hyperparameter settings. We demonstrate the effectiveness of GeoLoRA on several state-of-the-art benchmarks, showing that it outperforms existing methods in both accuracy and computational efficiency.
