# Towards Easier-to-Tune Training Algorithms: New Results from AlgoPerf

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.13036 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.13036/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 19 of its 27 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 9 Oct 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 19 of 19)

- [The FineWeb Datasets: Decanting the Web for the Finest Text Data at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.17557/) (2024)
- [Symbolic Discovery of Optimization Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.06675/) (2023)
- [SOAP: Improving and Stabilizing Shampoo using Adam](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.11321/) (2024)
- [The Road Less Scheduled](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.15682/) (2024)
- [DiLoCo: Distributed Low-Communication Training of Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.08105/) (2023)
- [Fantastic Pretraining Optimizers and Where to Find Them](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.02046/) (2025)
- [A Distributed Data-Parallel PyTorch Implementation of the Distributed Shampoo Optimizer for Training Neural Networks At-Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.06497/) (2023)
- [Benchmarking Optimizers for Large Language Model Pretraining](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.01440/) (2025)
- [MARS: Unleashing the Power of Variance Reduction for Training Large Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.10438/) (2024)
- [The AdEMAMix Optimizer: Better, Faster, Older](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.03137/) (2024)
- [Benchmarking Neural Network Training Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.07179/) (2023)
- [Preconditioned Stochastic Gradient Descent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.04202/) (2015)
- [Cautious Optimizers: Improving Training with One Line of Code](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.16085/) (2024)
- [Accelerating Neural Network Training: An Analysis of the AlgoPerf Competition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.15015/) (2025)
- [Faster Neural Network Training with Data Echoing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.05550/) (2019)
- [SNOO: Step-K Nesterov Outer Optimizer - The Surprising Effectiveness of Nesterov Momentum Applied to Pseudo-Gradients](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.15830/) (2025)
- [Optimization Benchmark for Diffusion Models on Dynamical Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.19376/) (2025)
- [Benchmarking Optimizers for MLPs in Tabular Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.15297/) (2026)
- [Evolution of Optimization Methods: Algorithms, Scenarios, and Evaluations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.12968/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Evaluating deep learning optimizer is challenging because confounding factors such as hyperparameter tuning and optimizer-model co-design often obscure true algorithmic performance. We present results of the updated AlgoPerf V1 benchmark, in which we evaluate a new set of training algorithms on wall-clock time-to-target across nine workloads on fixed hardware. This report focuses on the results of the benchmark's self-tuning ruleset, which requires submissions to use a single configuration across all workloads. Out of the 13 submissions in PyTorch and JAX, Schedule-Free AdamW ranked first. In addition to the wall-clock scores, we also analyze the trade-offs between step efficiency and wall-clock execution, revealing that matrix-preconditioned and two-loop methods achieve good sample efficiency but require more aggressive computational optimizations to be competitive in runtime. Finally, our hyperparameter saliency and retention analyses show that the learning rate and momentum are highly sensitive across domains and algorithms, highlighting the need for methods that are more robust against hyperparameter tuning and can generalize well to new tasks.
