Quantization lowers memory usage, computational requirements, and latency by utilizing fewer bits to represent model weights and activations. In this work, we investigate the generalization properties of quantized neural networks, a characteristic that has received little attention despite its implications on model performance. In particular, first, we develop a theoretical model for quantization in neural networks and demonstrate how quantization functions as a form of regularization. Second, motivated by recent work connecting the sharpness of the loss landscape and generalization, we derive an approximate bound for the generalization of quantized models conditioned on the amount of quantization noise. We then validate our hypothesis by experimenting with over 2000 models trained on CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100, and ImageNet datasets on convolutional and transformer-based models.

使用更少的位数表示模型权重和激活，量化降低了内存使用、计算需求和延迟。我们研究了量化神经网络的泛化性质，首先通过理论模型表明了量化作为一种正则化的功能，其次通过与损失函数曲线陡峭度与泛化的相关性的研究，提出了一个近似限制量化模型泛化性的方法，通过在CIFAR-10、CIFAR-100和ImageNet数据集上对卷积和Transformer模型进行超过2000次实验进行验证。

QGen：关于量化感知训练的泛化能力