DimGrow: Memory-Efficient Field-level Embedding Dimension Search

Abstract

Key feature fields need bigger embedding dimensionality, others need smaller. This demands automated dimension allocation. Existing approaches, such as pruning or Neural Architecture Search (NAS), require training a memory-intensive SuperNet that enumerates all possible dimension combinations, which is infeasible for large feature spaces. We propose DimGrow, a lightweight approach that eliminates the SuperNet requirement. Starting training model from one dimension per feature field, DimGrow can progressively expand/shrink dimensions via importance scoring. Dimensions grow only when their importance consistently exceed a threshold, ensuring memory efficiency. Experiments on three recommendation datasets verify the effectiveness of DimGrow while it reduces training memory compared to SuperNet-based methods.

arXiv commentThis paper is duplicated. As the newest version of this paper is arXiv:2503.09315. In addition, this paper will prevent the newest version of paper during the review process