mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

FISMO: Fisher-Structured Momentum-Orthogonalized Optimizer

arXiv 2601.21750 ↗First posted 29 Jan 2026cs.LGcited by 11

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Abstract (arXiv)

Training large-scale neural networks requires solving nonconvex optimization where the choice of optimizer fundamentally determines both convergence behavior and computational efficiency. While adaptive methods like Adam have long dominated practice, the recently proposed Muon optimizer achieves superior performance through orthogonalized momentum updates that enforce isotropic geometry with uniform singular values. However, this strict isotropy discards potentially valuable curvature information encoded in gradient spectra, motivating optimization methods that balance geometric structure with adaptivity. We introduce FISMO (Fisher-Structured Momentum-Orthogonalized) optimizer, which generalizes isotropic updates to incorporate anisotropic curvature information through Fisher information geometry. By reformulating the optimizer update as a trust-region problem constrained by a Kronecker-factored Fisher metric, FISMO achieves structured preconditioning that adapts to local loss landscape geometry while maintaining computational tractability. We establish convergence guarantees for FISMO in stochastic nonconvex settings, proving an O(1/√T) rate for the expected squared gradient norm with explicit characterization of variance reduction through mini-batching. Empirical evaluation on image classification and language modeling benchmarks demonstrates that FISMO achieves superior training efficiency and final performance compared to established baselines.

Key facts. Cited by 11 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 22 of its 41 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 29 Jan 2026.

Builds on

22 of 41 references.

References · 22

  1. 2023GPT-4 Technical Reportcited by 18,396
  2. 2023LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Modelscited by 14,132
  3. 2018Adafactor: Adaptive Learning Rates with Sublinear Memory Costcited by 905
  4. 2015Optimizing Neural Networks with Kronecker-factored Approximate Curvaturecited by 796
  5. 2014New insights and perspectives on the natural gradient methodcited by 443
  6. 2017Deep Layer Aggregationcited by 436
  7. 2025Muon is Scalable for LLM Trainingcited by 428
  8. 2024Old Optimizer, New Norm: An Anthologycited by 193
  9. 2024SOAP: Improving and Stabilizing Shampoo using Adamcited by 192
  10. 2018Fast Approximate Natural Gradient Descent in a Kronecker-factored Eigenbasiscited by 146
  11. 2024Adam-mini: Use Fewer Learning Rates To Gain Morecited by 137
  12. 2025Muon Optimizes Under Spectral Norm Constraintscited by 86
10 more
  1. 2025A Note on the Convergence of Muoncited by 83
  2. 2025ASGO: Adaptive Structured Gradient Optimizationcited by 57
  3. 2025PolarGrad: A Class of Matrix-Gradient Optimizers from a Unifying Preconditioning Perspectivecited by 52
  4. 2025Muon Outperforms Adam in Tail-End Associative Memory Learningcited by 46
  5. 2025Isotropic Curvature Model for Understanding Deep Learning Optimization: Is Gradient Orthogonalization Optimal?cited by 37
  6. 2025MuonBP: Faster Muon via Block-Periodic Orthogonalizationcited by 35
  7. 2013The Complexity of Large-scale Convex Programming under a Linear Optimization Oraclecited by 29
  8. 2025Muon Optimizer Accelerates Grokkingcited by 12
  9. 2023Natural Gradient Methods: Perspectives, Efficient-Scalable Approximations, and Analysiscited by 8
  10. 2017True Asymptotic Natural Gradient Optimizationcited by 5

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Citing papers per year: 2026: 11.

11 papers.