# Adaptive Federated LoRA in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks with Independent Sampling

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.23555 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.23555/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 28 of its 39 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 May 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 28 of 28)

- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09685/) (2021)
- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [Prefix-Tuning: Optimizing Continuous Prompts for Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.00190/) (2021)
- [The Power of Scale for Parameter-Efficient Prompt Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.08691/) (2021)
- [Gemini 1.5: Unlocking multimodal understanding across millions of tokens of context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.05530/) (2024)
- [On the Convergence of FedAvg on Non-IID Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.02189/) (2019)
- [How to Fine-Tune BERT for Text Classification?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.05583/) (2019)
- [Client Selection for Federated Learning with Heterogeneous Resources in Mobile Edge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.08333/) (2018)
- [Towards Building the Federated GPT: Federated Instruction Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.05644/) (2023)
- [Improving LoRA in Privacy-preserving Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.12313/) (2024)
- [On the Convergence of Local Descent Methods in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.14425/) (2019)
- [FLoRA: Federated Fine-Tuning Large Language Models with Heterogeneous Low-Rank Adaptations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.05976/) (2024)
- [OpenFedLLM: Training Large Language Models on Decentralized Private Data via Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.06954/) (2024)
- [Optimal Client Sampling for Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.13723/) (2020)
- [Heterogeneous LoRA for Federated Fine-tuning of On-Device Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.06432/) (2024)
- [Federated Fine-tuning of Large Language Models under Heterogeneous Tasks and Client Resources](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.11505/) (2024)
- [Tackling System and Statistical Heterogeneity for Federated Learning with Adaptive Client Sampling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.11256/) (2021)
- [Cost-Effective Federated Learning Design](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.08336/) (2020)
- [Communication-Efficient Stochastic Zeroth-Order Optimization for Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.09531/) (2022)
- [Communication-Efficient Device Scheduling for Federated Learning Using Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.07912/) (2022)
- [Federated Learning under Importance Sampling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.07383/) (2020)
- [Cost-Effective Federated Learning in Mobile Edge Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.05411/) (2021)
- [Towards Robust and Efficient Federated Low-Rank Adaptation with Heterogeneous Clients](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.22815/) (2024)
- [Ten Challenging Problems in Federated Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.12176/) (2025)
- [Towards Federated Low-Rank Adaptation of Language Models with Rank Heterogeneity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.17477/) (2024)
- [Hierarchical Federated Learning with Multi-Timescale Gradient Correction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.18448/) (2024)
- [Demo: FedCampus: A Real-world Privacy-preserving Mobile Application for Smart Campus via Federated Learning & Analytics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.00327/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Priority-Aware Learning-Unlearning Correction for Dynamic Decentralized LoRA Fine-Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.22878/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Federated LoRA has emerged as a promising technique for efficiently fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) on distributed devices by reducing the number of trainable parameters. However, existing approaches often inadequately overlook the theoretical and practical implications of system and data heterogeneity, thereby failing to optimize the overall training efficiency, particularly in terms of wall-clock time. In this paper, we propose an adaptive federated LoRA strategy with independent client sampling to minimize the convergence wall-clock time of federated fine-tuning under both computation and communication heterogeneity. We first derive a new convergence bound for federated LoRA with arbitrary and independent client sampling, notably without requiring the stringent bounded gradient assumption. Then, we introduce an adaptive bandwidth allocation scheme that accounts for heterogeneous client resources and system bandwidth constraints. Based on the derived theory, we formulate and solve a non-convex optimization problem to jointly determine the LoRA sketching ratios and sampling probabilities, aiming to minimize wall-clock convergence time. An efficient and low-complexity algorithm is developed to approximate the solution. Finally, extensive experiments demonstrate that our approach significantly reduces wall-clock training time compared to state-of-the-art methods across various models and datasets.
