The end-to-end neural combinatorial optimization (NCO) method shows promising performance in solving complex combinatorial optimization problems without the need for expert design. However, existing methods struggle with large-scale problems, hindering their practical applicability. To overcome this limitation, this work proposes a novel Self-Improved Learning (SIL) method for better scalability of neural combinatorial optimization. Specifically, we develop an efficient self-improved mechanism that enables direct model training on large-scale problem instances without any labeled data. Powered by an innovative local reconstruction approach, this method can iteratively generate better solutions by itself as pseudo-labels to guide efficient model training. In addition, we design a linear complexity attention mechanism for the model to efficiently handle large-scale combinatorial problem instances with low computation overhead. Comprehensive experiments on the Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) and the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) with up to 100K nodes in both uniform and real-world distributions demonstrate the superior scalability of our method.

提出了一种自我改进学习（Self-Improved Learning, SIL）方法，用于提高神经组合优化（neural combinatorial optimization, NCO）的可扩展性，包括有效的模型训练和解决大规模问题实例的线性复杂度注意机制。在旅行推销员问题（Travelling Salesman Problem, TSP）和容量车辆路径问题（Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem, CVRP）上进行的全面实验证明了该方法的出色可扩展性。

自我改进学习的可扩展神经组合优化