Train language models where each expert learns independently on closed datasets, enabling flexible inference with selective data inclusion or exclusion. 41% performance improvement while allowing users to opt out of specific data sources without retraining.
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FlexOlmo: Open Language Models for Flexible Data Use
version
0.0.2
engine
skillxiv-v0.0.2-claude-opus-4.6
license
MIT
url
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.07024
keywords
["Mixture of Experts","Data Privacy","Model Composition","Domain-specific Experts","Opt-out Learning"]
description
Train language models where each expert learns independently on closed datasets, enabling flexible inference with selective data inclusion or exclusion. 41% performance improvement while allowing users to opt out of specific data sources without retraining.
Flexible Data Mixture of Experts: Composable Models with Per-Dataset Training and Inference Selection
Traditional language models pool all training data during training, making it impossible to exclude data sources later or share models with restricted data licensing—a model trained on copyrighted material cannot be shared with users who don't have rights to that content. FlexOlmo solves this through decoupled mixture-of-experts training: each expert trains independently on a single dataset (or dataset collection), enabled by a frozen public model as an anchor point that all experts learn relative to. At inference, users select which experts (data sources) to include, and the router combines only those selected experts without retraining.
When building collaborative models across organizations with different data licensing, when building systems respecting user privacy choices, or when creating composable models that can be updated incrementally, flexible mixture-of-experts enables a new paradigm: models that are modular, respectful of data constraints, and auditable about which data influences which outputs.
Core Concept
FlexOlmo separates training and routing through three innovations. First, coordinated training: each expert trains independently on its dataset using a frozen public model as an anchor (providing consistent baseline performance), allowing experts to learn without pooling or seeing other datasets. Second, domain-informed routing: rather than joint router training (which requires mixed data), the router learns expert-specific embeddings initialized from domain representations, then finetuned independently on each dataset. These per-expert embeddings concatenate at inference. Third, inference-time flexibility: selecting which experts to include requires no retraining—the router naturally handles missing experts through concatenated embeddings. Optional lightweight tuning on small public proxy datasets can refine the router without accessing closed data.
Architecture Overview
Frozen Public Model: Baseline LLM shared across all expert training as an anchor point
Expert Embeddings (Router): Per-expert learned representations derived from dataset characteristics
Router Assembly: Concatenates selected expert embeddings at inference time
Gating Network: Learns to weight and combine expert outputs conditioned on input
Optional Proxy Tuning: Lightweight router refinement using public data resembling closed datasets
Implementation
This example demonstrates the coordinated training approach where experts train independently on separate datasets using a frozen public model as anchor.
# Coordinated independent expert training with frozen public anchorimport torch
import torch.nn as nn
import torch.nn.functional as F
classExpertModule(nn.Module):
def__init__(self, hidden_dim=2048, num_layers=12, num_heads=32):
"""Expert transformer module for single dataset."""super().__init__()
self.hidden_dim = hidden_dim
self.num_layers = num_layers
# Expert-specific layers (independent learning)self.expert_layers = nn.ModuleList([
nn.TransformerEncoderLayer(
d_model=hidden_dim,
nhead=num_heads,
dim_feedforward=8192,
batch_first=True
)
for _ inrange(num_layers)
])
self.output_norm = nn.LayerNorm(hidden_dim)
defforward(self, x):
"""Process through expert layers."""for layer inself.expert_layers:
x = layer(x)
x = self.output_norm(x)
return x
classCoordinatedMixtureOfExperts:
def__init__(self, public_model, num_experts: int, hidden_dim=2048):
"""Initialize mixture with frozen public model and independent experts."""self.public_model = public_model # Frozen anchorself.public_model.eval() # Never train public model# Initialize expertsself.experts = nn.ModuleList([
ExpertModule(hidden_dim=hidden_dim)
for _ inrange(num_experts)
])
self.hidden_dim = hidden_dim
deftrain_expert(self, expert_id: int, dataset, optimizer, num_epochs: int):
"""Train single expert on its dataset using frozen public model as anchor."""
expert = self.experts[expert_id]
expert.train()
for epoch inrange(num_epochs):
total_loss = 0.0for batch in dataset:
# Get embeddings from frozen public model (anchor point)with torch.no_grad():
input_ids = batch['input_ids']
outputs = self.public_model(input_ids, output_hidden_states=True)
anchor_embeddings = outputs.hidden_states[-1] # [batch, seq, dim]# Expert learns to predict next tokens better than public model
expert_output = expert(anchor_embeddings)
# Compute target (ground truth tokens)
target_output = self.public_model(
batch['input_ids'], output_hidden_states=True
).last_hidden_state
# Loss: how much better can expert do than public model?
loss = F.mse_loss(expert_output, target_output)
optimizer.zero_grad()
loss.backward()
optimizer.step()
total_loss += loss.item()
print(f"Expert {expert_id}, Epoch {epoch}: Loss {total_loss:.4f}")
defforward_with_selected_experts(self, input_ids: torch.Tensor, selected_experts: list):
"""Inference with selected experts only (no retraining needed)."""# Get public model embeddings (anchor)with torch.no_grad():
outputs = self.public_model(input_ids, output_hidden_states=True)
embeddings = outputs.hidden_states[-1]
# Pass through selected experts
expert_outputs = []
for expert_id in selected_experts:
expert_output = self.experts[expert_id](embeddings)
expert_outputs.append(expert_output)
# Average selected expert outputs
combined = torch.mean(torch.stack(expert_outputs), dim=0)
return combined
This example shows the domain-informed router design where each expert gets an independent embedding learned from its dataset.
classDomainInformedRouter(nn.Module):
def__init__(self, hidden_dim: int, num_experts: int):
"""Router with per-expert embeddings learned independently."""super().__init__()
self.hidden_dim = hidden_dim
self.num_experts = num_experts
# Per-expert embeddings (learned independently, no cross-dataset mixing)self.expert_embeddings = nn.ParameterList([
nn.Parameter(torch.randn(hidden_dim))
for _ inrange(num_experts)
])
# Gating: learns to weight expertsself.gate = nn.Sequential(
nn.Linear(hidden_dim, hidden_dim),
nn.ReLU(),
nn.Linear(hidden_dim, num_experts),
nn.Softmax(dim=-1)
)
definitialize_embeddings_from_domain(self, domain_representations: list):
"""Initialize expert embeddings from domain characteristics.
domain_representations: list of [hidden_dim] tensors per domain."""for i, domain_repr inenumerate(domain_representations):
self.expert_embeddings[i].data = domain_repr.clone()
defcompute_expert_weights(self, input_embedding: torch.Tensor) -> torch.Tensor:
"""Compute weights for combining expert outputs.
Only selected experts' embeddings are used."""# Gate takes input and produces expert weights
weights = self.gate(input_embedding)
return weights
defforward_with_selected_experts(self, expert_outputs: list, input_embedding: torch.Tensor):
"""Combine outputs from selected experts.
expert_outputs: list of [batch, seq, hidden] from selected experts only."""# Compute weights
all_weights = self.compute_expert_weights(input_embedding)
# Only use weights for selected experts
num_selected = len(expert_outputs)
# Renormalize weights for selected subset
selected_weights = all_weights[:, :num_selected] / (all_weights[:, :num_selected].sum(dim=-1, keepdim=True) + 1e-10)
# Weighted combination
combined = torch.zeros_like(expert_outputs[0])
for i, expert_output inenumerate(expert_outputs):
combined += expert_output * selected_weights[:, i:i+1]
return combined
This example demonstrates inference-time flexibility: dynamically selecting which experts to include without retraining.
classFlexOlmoModel(nn.Module):
def__init__(self, public_model, num_experts: int, hidden_dim=2048):
super().__init__()
self.moe = CoordinatedMixtureOfExperts(public_model, num_experts, hidden_dim)
self.router = DomainInformedRouter(hidden_dim, num_experts)
definference_with_data_selection(self, input_ids: torch.Tensor, expert_selection: dict):
"""Perform inference with user-selected data sources.
expert_selection: {'licenses_to_include': ['MIT', 'Apache2'], 'opt_outs': ['proprietary']}"""# Determine which experts to use based on selection
selected_expert_ids = self._compute_selected_experts(expert_selection)
# Get public model embeddingswith torch.no_grad():
outputs = self.public_model(input_ids, output_hidden_states=True)
embeddings = outputs.hidden_states[-1]
# Forward through selected experts
selected_outputs = []
for expert_id in selected_expert_ids:
output = self.moe.experts[expert_id](embeddings)
selected_outputs.append(output)
# Combine with router (no retraining!)
combined = self.router.forward_with_selected_experts(
selected_outputs,
embeddings[:, 0] # Use [CLS] token for routing
)
return combined
def_compute_selected_experts(self, selection_criteria: dict) -> list:
"""Map data selection criteria to expert indices."""# This would be populated with metadata about which expert trained on which data
selected = []
for expert_id, metadata inenumerate(self.expert_metadata):
# Check if expert matches selection criteriaifself._matches_criteria(metadata, selection_criteria):
selected.append(expert_id)
return selected if selected elselist(range(len(self.moe.experts)))
defoptional_proxy_tuning(self, public_proxy_dataset, learning_rate=1e-5, num_epochs=1):
"""Lightweight router tuning using public data without accessing closed datasets."""
optimizer = torch.optim.AdamW(self.router.parameters(), lr=learning_rate)
for epoch inrange(num_epochs):
for batch in public_proxy_dataset:
# Forward with all experts
selected_outputs = [
self.moe.experts[i](batch['embeddings'])
for i inrange(len(self.moe.experts))
]
# Router learns better weighting
combined = self.router.forward_with_selected_experts(
selected_outputs, batch['embeddings'][:, 0]
)
# Loss: matching behavior of public model
target = self.public_model(batch['input_ids']).logits
loss = F.mse_loss(combined, target)
optimizer.zero_grad()
loss.backward()
optimizer.step()
print(f"Proxy tuning epoch {epoch}: Loss {loss:.4f}")
Practical Guidance
Hyperparameter
Recommended Value
Purpose
Number of experts
4-8
Balance diversity vs. memory
Expert hidden dimension
2048
Standard transformer scale
Expert depth
12 layers
Compute-balanced with base model
Learning rate (expert training)
1e-4
Conservative independent learning
Learning rate (router tuning)
1e-5
Lightweight proxy tuning
Gating bottleneck dimension
hidden_dim
Avoid information loss
Softmax temperature (gating)
1.0
Standard attention temperature
Proxy dataset size
10% of expert dataset
Sufficient for router refinement
When to use: Apply FlexOlmo when building collaborative models across institutions with different data licensing, when offering users privacy-respecting opt-outs, or when building models that must be auditable about data influence. Use when you need to gradually add new data sources without retraining shared infrastructure.
When NOT to use: Skip if all data sources can be pooled freely and licensing is not a constraint. Avoid if experts must be tightly coupled (reasoning requiring cross-dataset context). Don't use if you need tight expert coordination—FlexOlmo assumes experts are somewhat independent. Skip for small-scale problems where routing overhead isn't justified.
Common pitfalls: Training experts jointly defeats the purpose—keep data sources separate. Using a public model that's too weak creates poor anchor; use a well-trained baseline. Not preserving domain characteristics in expert embeddings wastes the domain-informed router. Over-aggressive proxy tuning causes the router to overfit the public distribution. Forgetting that selection at inference requires metadata mapping (you must track which expert trained on which data). Not testing that expert removal actually works as expected.
Reference
FlexOlmo Team. (2025). FlexOlmo: Open Language Models for Flexible Data Use. arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.07024. https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.07024
