Zero-Order Stochastic Conditional Gradient Sliding Method for Non-smooth Convex Optimization

Abstract: The conditional gradient idea proposed by Marguerite Frank and Philip Wolfe in 1956 was so well received by the community that new algorithms (also called Frank--Wolfe type algorithms) are still being actively created. In this paper, we study a non-smooth stochastic convex optimization problem with constraints. Using a smoothing technique and based on an accelerated batched first-order Stochastic Conditional Gradient Sliding method, we propose a novel gradient-free Frank--Wolfe type algorithm called Zero-Order Stochastic Conditional Gradient Sliding (ZO-SCGS). This algorithm is robust not only for the class of non-smooth problems, but surprisingly also for the class of smooth black box problems, outperforming the SOTA algorithms in the smooth case in term oracle calls. In practical experiments we confirm our theoretical results.