# SoftBinary Coding: A New Information-Theoretic Neural Compression Paradigm

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.29578 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.29578/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 28 Jun 2026.

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

- [Scalable Discrete-to-Continuous Channel Simulation for Compression and Privacy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.12067/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Neural compression is currently dominated by Nonlinear Transform Coding (NTC), which maps data to real-valued latents via continuous transforms. Despite its success, NTC suffers from train-test mismatch due to non-differentiable quantization, a ``smoothness bias" inherent in continuous transforms that precludes optimality for certain sources, and a loss of ``shaping gain" due to the complexity of including high-dimensional vector quantization. We propose SoftBinary Coding (SBC), an end-to-end learning paradigm that bypasses these limitations by using a stochastic binary latent space. In the spirit of vector quantization, SBC employs discrete representations and compresses them through a novel fast binary channel simulation scheme, for which we provide a proof of rate optimality. Experimental gains on information-theoretic sources provide both theoretical and practical closure to NTC's limitations, establishing discrete binary structures as a viable path toward reaching optimal rate--distortion bounds. Surprisingly, SBC also achieves state-of-the-art performance on vector quantization of i.i.d. sources, exceeding Trellis Coded Quantization of the Gaussian source.