Multi-Domain Clustering via Measure Quantization

Rafael Pereira Eufrazio, Eduardo Fernandes Montesuma, Charles Casimiro Cavalcante

Clustering is a fundamental task in data analysis, typically addressed through centroid-based methods such as K-means. In this work, we present a general framework for multi-domain clustering via measure quantization: given samples from multiple domains, we learn a shared set of cluster prototypes by minimizing a probability metric, such as the Sinkhorn divergence or the Maximum Mean Discrepancy, between each domain's probability measure and the measure of prototypes. Data points are then assigned to clusters either via nearest centroid, or via optimal transport, a collaborative strategy that couples all samples within a domain. A mini-batch optimization strategy makes both fitting and assignment scalable, reducing memory and computational cost while preserving clustering performance. Experimental results on 5 multi-domain benchmarks spanning image, audio and sensor data show that our Sinkhorn-based method consistently outperforms classical and multi-domain clustering baselines, and that this advantage persists when scaling to hundreds of thousands of samples.