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Pruning random resistive memory for optimizing analog AI

delete2026-01-10
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OA
AI
Y
Yi Li
S
Songqi Wang
Y
Yaping Zhao
S
Shaocong Wang
B
Bo Wang
W
Woyu Zhang
Y
Yangu He
林宁 cover
林宁 (Ning Lin)
B
Binbin Cui
X
Xi Chen
S
Shiming Zhang
H
Hao Jiang
P
Peng Lin
X
Xumeng Zhang
F
Feng Zhang
X
Xiaojuan Qi
Z
Zhongrui Wang *
X
Xiaoxin Xu *
D
Dashan Shang *
Q
Qi Liu
王
王瀚 (Han Wang)
K
Kwang‐Ting Cheng
M
Ming Liu
DOI:10.1038/s41467-025-67960-6delete
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Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
The rapid expansion of AI models has intensified concerns over energy consumption. Analog in-memory computing with resistive memory offers a promising, energy-efficient alternative, yet its practical deployment is hindered by programming challenges and device non-idealities. Here, we propose a software-hardware co-design that trains randomly weighted resistive-memory neural networks via edge-pruning topology optimization. Software-wise, we tailor the network topology to extract high-performing sub-networks without precise weight tuning, enhancing robustness to device variations and reducing programming overhead. Hardware-wise, we harness the intrinsic stochasticity of resistive-memory electroforming to generate large-scale, low-cost random weights. Implemented on a 40 nm resistive memory chip, our co-design yields accuracy improvements of 17.3% and 19.9% on Fashion-MNIST and Spoken Digit, respectively, and a 9.8% precision-recall AUC improvement on DRIVE, while reducing energy consumption by 78.3%, 67.9%, and 99.7%. We further demonstrate broad applicability across analog memory technologies and scalability to ResNet-50 on ImageNet-100. AI models consume growing amounts of energy. Here, the authors introduce a brain-inspired way to prune connections in randomly weighted resistive-memory chips, boosting accuracy while avoiding costly analog tuning to improve general efficiency and reduce power use.
Keywords:
Analog AI
Resistive memory
Neural network pruning
Energy efficiency
Software-hardware co-design
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Nature Communications cover
Nature Communications
IF:
15.7
Papers:
9.4W
Citations:
91.2W

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Z
Zhejiang University
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1.5W
Papers: 5.2K
Citations: 17.8W
T
The University of Hong Kong
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Papers: 3.2K
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T
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
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1.6K
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Fudan University
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Papers: 1.4K
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C
Chinese Academy of Sciences
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3.9W
Papers: 1.5W
Citations: 58.4W
S
southern university of science and technology
Scholars:
4.7K
Papers: 1.7K
Citations: 0
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