  Modern large-scale finite-sum optimization relies on two key aspects:
distribution and stochastic updates. For smooth and strongly convex problems,
existing decentralized algorithms are slower than modern accelerated
variance-reduced stochastic algorithms when run on a single machine, and are
therefore not efficient. Centralized algorithms are fast, but their scaling is
limited by global aggregation steps that result in communication bottlenecks.
In this work, we propose an efficient \textbf{A}ccelerated
\textbf{D}ecentralized stochastic algorithm for \textbf{F}inite \textbf{S}ums
named ADFS, which uses local stochastic proximal updates and randomized
pairwise communications between nodes. On $n$ machines, ADFS learns from $nm$
samples in the same time it takes optimal algorithms to learn from $m$ samples
on one machine. This scaling holds until a critical network size is reached,
which depends on communication delays, on the number of samples $m$, and on the
network topology. We provide a theoretical analysis based on a novel augmented
graph approach combined with a precise evaluation of synchronization times and
an extension of the accelerated proximal coordinate gradient algorithm to
arbitrary sampling. We illustrate the improvement of ADFS over state-of-the-art
decentralized approaches with experiments.
