# DKM: Differentiable K-Means Clustering Layer for Neural Network Compression **PyTorch implementation of the ICLR 2022 paper by Cho et al.** 📄 [Paper (arXiv:2108.12659)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.12659) | 🏛️ [ICLR 2022](https://openreview.net/forum?id=J_F_qqCE3Z5) ## Overview DKM casts **k-means weight clustering** as a differentiable **attention problem**, enabling joint optimization of DNN parameters and clustering centroids through standard backpropagation. Unlike prior weight-clustering methods that rely on hard assignments and approximated gradients, DKM uses soft attention-based assignment that is fully differentiable. ### Key Innovation ``` Traditional: weights → hard k-means assignment → fixed centroids (not differentiable) DKM: weights → attention-based soft assignment → differentiable centroids ``` The DKM layer: 1. Computes a **distance matrix** D between weights W and centroids C 2. Applies **softmax with temperature τ** to get attention matrix A = softmax(D/τ) 3. Updates centroids: c_j = Σ_i(a_ij × w_i) / Σ_i(a_ij) 4. Iterates until convergence 5. Returns compressed weights: W̃ = A × C ### Paper Results | Model | Config | Top-1 Acc (%) | Size (MB) | Compression | |-------|--------|--------------|-----------|-------------| | ResNet50 | cv:6/6, fc:6/4 | 74.5 | 3.32 | 29.4× | | MobileNet-v1 | cv:4/4, fc:4/2 | 63.9 | 0.72 | 22.4× | | MobileNet-v2 | cv:2/1, fc:4/4 | 68.0 | 0.84 | 15.8× | | DistilBERT | - | -1.1% acc drop | - | 11.8× | ## Installation ```bash git clone https://huggingface.co/syedmohaiminulhoque/dkm-compression cd dkm-compression pip install torch torchvision ``` ## Quick Start ```python import torch import torch.nn as nn from dkm import compress_model from dkm.utils import print_compression_summary # Load any pre-trained model model = torchvision.models.resnet18(weights="DEFAULT") # Compress with DKM (2-bit clustering) compressor = compress_model( model, bits=2, # k = 2^bits = 4 clusters dim=1, # scalar clustering (dim=1) or multi-dim tau=2e-5, # temperature (controls softness of assignment) skip_first_last=True, # skip first/last layers (per paper protocol) ) # Print compression statistics info = compressor.get_compression_info() print_compression_summary(info) # Train with standard PyTorch loop (paper: SGD, lr=0.008, momentum=0.9) optimizer = torch.optim.SGD(compressor.parameters(), lr=0.008, momentum=0.9) criterion = nn.CrossEntropyLoss() compressor.train() for images, labels in dataloader: optimizer.zero_grad() outputs = compressor(images) loss = criterion(outputs, labels) loss.backward() # Gradients flow through DKM attention layers optimizer.step() # Snap to nearest centroids for inference compressor.snap_weights() # Export compressed model (codebook + assignments) export = compressor.export_compressed() torch.save(export, "compressed_model.pt") ``` ## Multi-Dimensional Clustering (Section 3.3) DKM supports multi-dimensional weight clustering for higher compression: ```python # Paper notation: "bits/dim" e.g., "4/4" means 4 bits, 4 dimensions # Effective bits-per-weight = bits / dim # Configuration cv:6/8, fc:6/4 (as in Table 3 of the paper) compressor = compress_model( model, bits=6, conv_config={"bits": 6, "dim": 8}, # 6 bits, 8 dims → 0.75 bpw fc_config={"bits": 6, "dim": 4}, # 6 bits, 4 dims → 1.5 bpw tau=2e-5, ) ``` | Config | Clusters | Dim | Effective BPW | |--------|----------|-----|---------------| | 3-bit | 8 | 1 | 3.0 | | 2-bit | 4 | 1 | 2.0 | | 1-bit | 2 | 1 | 1.0 | | 4/4 | 16 | 4 | 1.0 | | 8/8 | 256 | 8 | 1.0 | | 4/8 | 16 | 8 | 0.5 | | 8/16 | 256 | 16 | 0.5 | ## Temperature τ Guidelines (Appendix B) The temperature controls the softness of cluster assignment: - **Smaller τ** → harder assignment (near one-hot), closer to standard k-means - **Larger τ** → softer assignment, more gradient flow, better for hard compression tasks | Model | 3-bit | 2-bit | 1-bit | 4/4 | 8/8 | |-------|-------|-------|-------|-----|-----| | ResNet18 | 8e-6 | 2e-5 | 5e-5 | 5e-5 | 8e-5 | | ResNet50 | 8e-6 | 2e-5 | 5e-5 | 4e-5 | OOM | | MobileNet-v1 | 5e-5 | 1e-4 | 3e-4 | 1e-4 | 1e-4 | | MobileNet-v2 | 5e-5 | 1e-4 | 1.5e-4 | 1e-4 | 1e-4 | ## Architecture ``` dkm/ ├── __init__.py # Package exports ├── dkm_layer.py # Core DKM layer (Section 3.2-3.3) ├── compressor.py # Model wrapper with DKM layers (Section 4) └── utils.py # Compression analysis utilities tests/ └── test_dkm.py # 16 comprehensive test groups (all passing) train.py # Full training pipeline (CIFAR-10 demo) ``` ### Core Components - **`DKMLayer`**: The differentiable k-means clustering layer. Implements the iterative attention-based clustering from Fig. 2 of the paper, with k-means++ initialization, warm start across batches, and convergence checking. - **`DKMCompressor`**: Wraps any PyTorch model by inserting DKM layers via forward pre-hooks. Handles per-layer configuration (different bits/dim for conv vs fc), the paper's protocol for small layers (<10K params → 8-bit), and first/last layer skipping. - **`compress_model`**: High-level API matching the paper's notation (cv:bits/dim, fc:bits/dim). ## Training Protocol (Section 4) Following the paper exactly: - **Optimizer**: SGD with momentum 0.9 - **Learning rate**: 0.008 (fixed, no per-layer tuning) - **Loss**: Original task loss (no regularizers or modifications) - **Epochs**: 200 for ImageNet, varies for GLUE - **Batch size**: 128 per GPU (paper used 8× V100) - **Convergence**: ε = 1e-4, max 5 DKM iterations per layer - **Small layers**: Layers with <10,000 parameters get 8-bit clustering ## Compressed Model Format After training, `export_compressed()` returns: - **state_dict**: Standard PyTorch state dict (with snapped weights) - **codebooks**: Per-layer centroid tensors (k × d float32) - **assignments**: Per-layer cluster index tensors (N/d integers, b bits each) - **layer_configs**: Per-layer DKM configuration The actual compressed size = Σ(codebook_bits + assignment_bits) per layer + uncompressed params. ## Tests All 16 test groups pass, covering: 1. Shape preservation (train & eval) 2. Distance matrix correctness 3. Attention matrix properties (row-sum=1, temperature effect) 4. Centroid convergence to cluster means 5. Gradient flow (differentiability — key paper contribution) 6. Multi-dimensional clustering 7. Iterative convergence 8. Full compressor pipeline 9. Weight snapping for inference 10. Model export 11. Multi-step training stability 12. Paper configurations (Table 1) 13. K-means++ initialization 14. Warm start across batches 15. Numerical stability (large/small/uniform weights) 16. ResNet-like model compression ```bash python tests/test_dkm.py ``` ## Citation ```bibtex @inproceedings{cho2022dkm, title={DKM: Differentiable k-Means Clustering Layer for Neural Network Compression}, author={Cho, Minsik and Alizadeh-Vahid, Keivan and Adya, Saurabh and Rastegari, Mohammad}, booktitle={International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR)}, year={2022}, url={https://openreview.net/forum?id=J_F_qqCE3Z5} } ``` ## License This is a research implementation. The original paper is by Apple Research (Cho et al., ICLR 2022).