Congestion Control System Optimization with Large Language Models

Abstract: Congestion control is a fundamental component of Internet infrastructure, and researchers have dedicated considerable effort to developing improved congestion control algorithms. However, despite extensive study, existing algorithms continue to exhibit suboptimal performance across diverse network environments. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach that automatically optimizes congestion control algorithms using LLMs. Our framework consists of a structured algorithm generation process, an emulation-based evaluation pipeline covering a broad range of network conditions, and a statistically guided method to substantially reduce evaluation time. Empirical results from four distinct LLMs validate the effectiveness of our approach. We successfully identify algorithms that achieve up to 27% performance improvements over the original BBR algorithm in a production QUIC implementation. Our work demonstrates the potential of LLMs to accelerate the design of high-performance network algorithms and paves the way for broader applications in networking systems.