Doubly stochastic large scale kernel learning with the empirical kernel map

Abstract: With the rise of big data sets, the popularity of kernel methods declined and neural networks took over again. The main problem with kernel methods is that the kernel matrix grows quadratically with the number of data points. Most attempts to scale up kernel methods solve this problem by discarding data points or basis functions of some approximation of the kernel map. Here we present a simple yet effective alternative for scaling up kernel methods that takes into account the entire data set via doubly stochastic optimization of the emprical kernel map. The algorithm is straightforward to implement, in particular in parallel execution settings; it leverages the full power and versatility of classical kernel functions without the need to explicitly formulate a kernel map approximation. We provide empirical evidence that the algorithm works on large data sets.