arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 3

From Task Mixtures to Specialized Experts

The paper investigates federated learning where each client’s data consists of unknown mixtures of distinct tasks, a scenario termed compound heterogeneity. It shows that when tasks share a common feature geometry, the optimal model for a mixed client is a convex combination of task‑specific models, motivating input‑dependent routing to specialized experts. The authors propose FedSEE, a method that recovers task experts via a convex program and achieves better performance than baselines, reducing negative transfer by 2.9 points overall and 3.7 points for the worst‑served quartile.

By Hojat Allah Salehi, Mehrdad Mahdavi, Andrew Arash Mahyari, M. Hadi Amini