Black-Box Optimization

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Overview

Black-box optimization studies how to choose inputs that maximize or minimize an objective when its internal workings or gradients are unavailable, often because each evaluation is costly. Common approaches include Gaussian-process Bayesian optimization, evolutionary strategies such as CMA-ES and differential evolution, and bandit or partitioning methods that balance exploration with refinement. Surrogate models, multi-fidelity evaluations, and learned or generative proposals extend these methods to noisy, constrained, discrete, and high-dimensional tasks, including scientific design and system tuning. Benchmarks such as COCO/BBOB and CEC help compare methods, but performance often depends on the problem and evaluation budget, leaving robust transfer and fair comparisons across settings as central challenges.

Latest papers

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176 papers25 papers in the last four weeks, up 25% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

  1. AscendOptimizer: Episodic Agent for Ascend NPU Operator Optimization

    Mar 24, 2026Jiehao Wu, Zixiao Huang, Wenhao Li +3GPU Kernel OptimizationBlack-Box Optimization

    School of Computer Science and Technology, East China Normal University · School of Computer Science and Technology, Tongji University · Shanghai University of International Business and Economics +3

  2. Constrained Hybrid Metaheuristic: A Universal Framework for Continuous Optimisation

    Mar 18, 2026Piotr A. Kowalski, Szymon Kucharczyk, Jacek MańdziukMetaheuristic OptimizationBlack-Box Optimization

    Faculty of Physics and Applied Computer Science, AGH University of Krakow, al. A. Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Cracow, Poland. · Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Newelska 6, 01-447 Warsaw, Poland. · AGH Doctoral School, AGH University of Krakow, al. A. Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Cracow, Poland. +2

  3. Quadratic Surrogate Attractor for Particle Swarm Optimization

    Mar 17, 2026Maurizio Clemente, Marcello CanovaParticle Swarm OptimizationSurrogate-Assisted Optimization

    Center for Automotive Research, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43212 USA

  4. DISCOVER: A Solver for Distributional Counterfactual Explanations

    Mar 17, 2026Yikai Gu, Lele Cao, Bo Zhao +2Counterfactual ExplanationsBlack-Box Optimization

    Technical University of Denmark · Scholar7 · Aalto University +1

  5. Trust-Region Noise Search for Black-Box Alignment of Diffusion and Flow Models

    Mar 15, 2026Niklas Schweiger, Daniel Cremers, Karnik RamDiffusion Model AlignmentBlack-Box Optimization

    Technical University of Munich, Germany · Munich Center for Machine Learning, Germany

  6. Batched Kernelized Bandits: Refinements and Extensions

    Mar 13, 2026Chenkai Ma, Keqin Chen, Jonathan ScarlettBlack-Box OptimizationMulti-Armed Bandits

    National University of Singapore

  7. Improving LLM Performance Through Black-Box Online Tuning: A Case for Adding System Specs to Factsheets for Trusted AI

    Mar 11, 2026Yonas Atinafu, Henry Lin, Robin CohenLLM Inference ServingLLM Serving

    David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada

  8. Empirical Evaluation of No Free Lunch Violations in Permutation-Based Optimization

    Mar 4, 2026Grzegorz SrokaBlack-Box OptimizationBenchmark Design

    Department of Nonlinear Analysis, Rzeszów University of Technology, Powstańców Warszawy 12, 35-959 Rzeszów, Poland

  9. LAGO: A Local-Global Optimization Framework Combining Trust Region Methods and Bayesian Optimization

    Mar 3, 2026Eliott Van Dieren, Tommaso Vanzan, Fabio NobileBlack-Box OptimizationBayesian Optimization

    Institute of Mathematics, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland · Dipartimento di Scienze Matematiche, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy

  10. From Heuristic Selection to Automated Algorithm Design: LLMs Benefit from Strong Priors

    Mar 3, 2026Qi Huang, Furong Ye, Ananta Shahane +2Large Language Model-Guided OptimizationAutomated Algorithm Discovery

    Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS), Leiden University, 2333 CC Leiden, The Netherlands

  11. Active Flow Matching

    Mar 1, 2026Yashvir S. Grewal, Daniel M. Steinberg, Thang D. Bui +2Molecule DesignFlow-Based Generative Modeling

    School of Computing, College of Systems and Society, Australian National University, Australia · Data61, CSIRO, Australia

  12. Goal-Oriented Influence-Maximizing Data Acquisition for Learning and Optimization

    Feb 23, 2026Weichi Yao, Bianca Dumitrascu, Bryan R. Goldsmith +1Active Information GatheringActive Learning

    University of Michigan · Columbia University

  13. Factorization Machine with Quadratic-Optimization Annealing for RNA Inverse Folding and Evaluation of Binary-Integer Encoding and Nucleotide Assignment

    Feb 18, 2026Shuta Kikuchi, Shu TanakaInverse DesignBlack-Box Optimization

    Graduate School of Science and Technology, Keio University, Yokohama, Kanagawa 223-8522, Japan · Keio University Sustainable Quantum Artificial Intelligence Center (KSQAIC), Keio University, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-8345, Japan · Department of Applied Physics and Physico-Informatics, Keio University, Yokohama, Kanagawa 223-8522, Japan +1

  14. Extending Multi-Source Bayesian Optimization With Causality Principles

    Feb 16, 2026Luuk Jacobs, Mohammad Ali JavidianBayesian OptimizationBlack-Box Optimization

    Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands · Appalachian State University Boone, United States

  15. BONSAI: Bayesian Optimization with Natural Simplicity and Interpretability

    Feb 6, 2026Samuel Daulton, David Eriksson, Maximilian Balandat +1Bayesian OptimizationBlack-Box Optimization

    Meta

  16. Meta-Learning-Assisted Constraint Relaxation for Constrained Black-Box Optimization

    Jan 31, 2026Sijie Ma, Zeyuan Ma, Yue-Jiao Gong +1Black-Box OptimizationLearning to Optimize

    Hong Kong Polytechnic University · South China Normal University · South China University of Technology

  17. Online Regime-aware Calibration for Black-box Social Simulators via Posterior-assisted Evolutionary Dynamic Optimization

    Jan 27, 2026Peng Yang, Zhenhua Yang, Boquan Jiang +3Evolutionary OptimizationBlack-Box Optimization

    Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Brain-Inspired Intelligent Computation, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China · Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China · Department of Statistics and Data Science, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China +2

  18. How Sequential Algorithm Portfolios can benefit Black Box Optimization

    Jan 23, 2026Catalin-Viorel Dinu, Diederick Vermetten, Carola DoerrAlgorithm SelectionBlack-Box Optimization

    Sorbonne Universit´e, CNRS, LIP6 in Paris, France

  19. Amortized Acquisition Optimization for Bayesian Optimization with Variational Mutual Information

    Jan 13, 2026Farhad MirkarimiBayesian OptimizationBlack-Box Optimization

  20. Hyperellipsoid Density Sampling: Exploitative Sequences to Accelerate High-Dimensional Numerical Optimization

    Nov 11, 2025Julian G. SoltesBlack-Box Optimization

    Regis University, Denver, Colorado, USA

  21. Tuning without Peeking: Provable Generalization Bounds and Robust LLM Post-Training

    Jul 2, 2025Ismail Labiad, Mathurin Videau, Matthieu Kowalski +4Privacy-Preserving Language ModelsEvolutionary Optimization

    Meta FAIR · Université Paris-Saclay · LISN, Inria, CNRS +2

  22. Probabilistic Approach to Black-Box Binary Optimization with Budget Constraints: Application to Sensor Placement

    Jun 9, 2024Ahmed AttiaBlack-Box OptimizationCombinatorial Optimization

    Mathematics and Computer Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, USA

  23. Simulating, Fast and Slow: Learning Policies for Black-Box Optimization

    Jun 6, 2024Tim Bakker, Fabio Valerio Massoli, Thomas Hehn +2Black-Box OptimizationLearning to Optimize

    University of Amsterdam § · Qualcomm AI Research‡

  24. BEACON: A Bayesian Optimization Inspired Strategy for Efficient Novelty Search

    Jun 5, 2024Wei-Ting Tang, Ankush Chakrabarty, Joel A. PaulsonNovelty SearchBlack-Box Optimization

    University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Madison, WI, USA. · The Ohio State University, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Columbus, OH, USA. · Insulet Corporation, Acton, MA, USA.

  25. MEGO: Learning Mixture-of-Experts for General-Purpose Binary Optimization

    May 29, 2024Shengcai Liu, Zhiyuan Wang, Yew-Soon Ong +2Black-Box OptimizationMixture of Experts

    Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Brain-inspired Intelligent Computation, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China · College of Computing & Data Science, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798 · School of Data Science, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, China

  26. Gradient Testing and Estimation by Comparisons

    May 19, 2024Xiwen Tao, Chenyi Zhang, Helin Wang +2Black-Box OptimizationZeroth-Order Optimization

    School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science, Peking University · Computer Science Department, Stanford University · Center on Frontiers of Computing Studies, Peking University +1