# Mixture of Experts (MoE): A Big Data Perspective

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.16352 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.16352/

## Key facts

- Cited by 18 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in MoE theory and gating functions, one of 12 directions in Mixture-of-experts.
- Builds on 79 of its 143 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 18 Jan 2025.

## Placed in

- Mixture-of-experts / [MoE theory and gating functions](https://mlsanity.com/moe/moe-theory-and-gating-functions/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 79)

- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [Switch Transformers: Scaling to Trillion Parameter Models with Simple and Efficient Sparsity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.03961/) (2021)
- [Categorical Reparameterization with Gumbel-Softmax](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.01144/) (2016)
- [GLaM: Efficient Scaling of Language Models with Mixture-of-Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.06905/) (2021)
- [DeepSeekMoE: Towards Ultimate Expert Specialization in Mixture-of-Experts Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.06066/) (2024)
- [Scaling Vision with Sparse Mixture of Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.05974/) (2021)
- [Dynamic Routing Between Capsules](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.09829/) (2017)
- [Mixture-of-Experts with Expert Choice Routing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.09368/) (2022)
- [Learning to learn by gradient descent by gradient descent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.04474/) (2016)
- [DeepSpeed-MoE: Advancing Mixture-of-Experts Inference and Training to Power Next-Generation AI Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.05596/) (2022)
- [A Survey of Convolutional Neural Networks: Analysis, Applications, and Prospects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.02806/) (2020)
- [Interpretable Preferences via Multi-Objective Reward Modeling and Mixture-of-Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.12845/) (2024)
- [FastComposer: Tuning-Free Multi-Subject Image Generation with Localized Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.10431/) (2023)
- [Multimodal Contrastive Learning with LIMoE: the Language-Image Mixture of Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.02770/) (2022)
- [Tutel: Adaptive Mixture-of-Experts at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.03382/) (2022)
- [Multimodal Large Language Models: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.13165/) (2023)
- [Towards Understanding Knowledge Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.13093/) (2021)
- [Not All Experts are Equal: Efficient Expert Pruning and Skipping for Mixture-of-Experts Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.14800/) (2024)
- [RAPHAEL: Text-to-Image Generation via Large Mixture of Diffusion Paths](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.18295/) (2023)
- [Large Language Models in Law: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.03718/) (2023)
- [DSelect-k: Differentiable Selection in the Mixture of Experts with Applications to Multi-Task Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.03760/) (2021)
- [When MOE Meets LLMs: Parameter Efficient Fine-tuning for Multi-task Medical Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.18339/) (2023)
- [Pre-gated MoE: An Algorithm-System Co-Design for Fast and Scalable Mixture-of-Expert Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.12066/) (2023)
- [M3ViT: Mixture-of-Experts Vision Transformer for Efficient Multi-task Learning with Model-Accelerator Co-design](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.14793/) (2022)
- [FuseMoE: Mixture-of-Experts Transformers for Fleximodal Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03226/) (2024)
- [Lifelong Language Pretraining with Distribution-Specialized Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.12281/) (2023)
- [Learning to Defer to Multiple Experts: Consistent Surrogate Losses, Confidence Calibration, and Conformal Ensembles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.16955/) (2022)
- [MoA: Mixture-of-Attention for Subject-Context Disentanglement in Personalized Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.11565/) (2024)
- [Meta-DMoE: Adapting to Domain Shift by Meta-Distillation from Mixture-of-Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03885/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 18 of 18)

- [A Comprehensive Survey of Mixture-of-Experts: Algorithms, Theory, and Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.07137/) (2025)
- [Mixture of Experts in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.11181/) (2025)
- [Unraveling the Localized Latents: Learning Stratified Manifold Structures in LLM Embedding Space with Sparse Mixture-of-Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.13577/) (2025)
- [Evaluation of LLMs for mathematical problem solving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.00309/) (2025)
- [Thinking Beyond Tokens: From Brain-Inspired Intelligence to Cognitive Foundations for Artificial General Intelligence and its Societal Impact](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.00951/) (2025)
- [DynaMo: Runtime Switchable Quantization for MoE with Cross-Dataset Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.21135/) (2025)
- [DE3S: Dual-Enhanced Soft-Sparse-Shape Learning for Medical Early Time-Series Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.12214/) (2025)
- [The Rise of Sparse Mixture-of-Experts: A Survey from Algorithmic Foundations to Decentralized Architectures and Vertical Domain Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.08019/) (2026)
- [Advances in Large Language Models for Medicine](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.18690/) (2025)
- [Graph-of-Causal Evolution: Challenging Chain-of-Model for Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.07501/) (2025)
- [History-Augmented Contrastive Learning With Soft Mixture of Experts for Blind Super-Resolution of Planetary Remote Sensing Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.20045/) (2025)
- [Let Experts Feel Uncertainty: A Multi-Expert Label Distribution Approach to Probabilistic Time Series Forecasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.04678/) (2026)
- [Robust Global-Local Behavior Arbitration via Continuous Command Fusion Under LiDAR Errors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.27273/) (2026)
- [Mixture-of-Experts in Remote Sensing: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.03342/) (2026)
- [DeepSeek Robustness Against Semantic-Character Dual-Space Mutated Prompt Injection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.12548/) (2026)
- [A novel YOLO26-MoE optimized by an LLM agent for insulator fault detection considering UAV images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.19595/) (2026)
- [Beyond Routing: Characterising Expert Tuning and Representation in Vision Mixture-of-Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.20610/) (2026)
- [Generalist-Specialist Mixture-of-Experts for Rare Pathology Detection in Multimodal Imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.18688/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

As the era of big data arrives, traditional artificial intelligence algorithms have difficulty processing the demands of massive and diverse data. Mixture of experts (MoE) has shown excellent performance and broad application prospects. This paper provides an in-depth review and analysis of the latest progress in this field from multiple perspectives, including the basic principles, algorithmic models, key technical challenges, and application practices of MoE. First, we introduce the basic concept of MoE and its core idea and elaborate on its advantages over traditional single models. Then, we discuss the basic architecture of MoE and its main components, including the gating network, expert networks, and learning algorithms. Next, we review the applications of MoE in addressing key technical issues in big data. For each challenge, we provide specific MoE solutions and their innovations. Furthermore, we summarize the typical use cases of MoE in various application domains. This fully demonstrates the powerful capability of MoE in big data processing. We also analyze the advantages of MoE in big data environments. Finally, we explore the future development trends of MoE. We believe that MoE will become an important paradigm of artificial intelligence in the era of big data. In summary, this paper systematically elaborates on the principles, techniques, and applications of MoE in big data processing, providing theoretical and practical references to further promote the application of MoE in real scenarios.