The paper investigates how synthetic pretraining priors used in tabular foundation models (TFMs) influence downstream performance. By reconstructing the synthetic data generators of four TFMs and comparing their generated tasks to two popular tabular benchmarks using structural descriptors, the authors measure structural coverage and normalized density. They find that some generators provide broader and denser support for benchmark tasks, and that stronger synthetic-to-benchmark support generally correlates with better model performance.
By He Zhao, Ryan Thompson, Daniel M. Steinberg, Ashfaqur Rahman, Edwin V. Bonilla, Cheng Soon Ong
arXiv:2606. 29241v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Data-generating priors are a central component of tabular foundation models because they define the task distribution used during pretraining.
By Zeynep T\"urkmen, K\"ur\c{s}at Kaya, Alexander Pfefferle, Frank Hutter
arXiv:2606. 30258v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Tabular foundation models have advanced deep learning for tabular data by delivering strong default performance across many small and medium tasks.
By Boshko Koloski, Xiangjian Jiang, Senja Pollak, Bla\v{z} \v{S}krlj, Mateja Jamnik, Nikola Simidjievski
arXiv:2606. 18812v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Foundation models for language and vision are powered by internet-scale data, while structured domains (tabular prediction, time-series forecasting, graph learning, reinforcement learning) are not.
By Abdelrahman Zighem, Jill-J\^enn Vie
arXiv:2605. 18147v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Predictive models play a pivotal role in credit risk management, guiding critical decisions through accurate estimation of default probabilities and losses.
By Bart Baesens, Andreas Goethals, Stefan Lessmann, Simon De Vos, Cristi\'an Bravo, David Martens, Victor Medina-Olivares, Christophe Mues, Maria Oskarsd\'ottir, Seppe vanden Broucke, Tony Van Gestel, Tim Verdonck, Wouter Verbeke
Foundation models for language and vision are powered by internet-scale data, while structured domains (tabular prediction, time-series forecasting, graph learning, reinforcement learning) are not. The substitute is synthetic data, which shifts the burden from collection to prior design.