DRAMA: Domain Retrieval using Adaptive Module Allocation

2026-02-16Information Retrieval

Information Retrieval
AI summary

The authors address the problem that neural search models require a lot of computing power and energy, especially when used for different topics or domains. They propose DRAMA, a system that uses small, domain-specific adapters combined with a smart selector to pick the best parts for each search query. This approach allows adding new topics without retraining the whole model and saves energy and resources. Their tests show that DRAMA works about as well as specialized models but is more efficient and sustainable.

Neural Information RetrievalDomain AdaptationAdapter ModulesDynamic GatingCross-domain GeneralizationEnergy EfficiencyModel ScalabilityParameter EfficiencySustainable AIWeb-scale Retrieval
Authors
Pranav Kasela, Marco Braga, Ophir Frieder, Nazli Goharian, Gabriella Pasi, Raffaele Perego
Abstract
Neural models are increasingly used in Web-scale Information Retrieval (IR). However, relying on these models introduces substantial computational and energy requirements, leading to increasing attention toward their environmental cost and the sustainability of large-scale deployments. While neural IR models deliver high retrieval effectiveness, their scalability is constrained in multi-domain scenarios, where training and maintaining domain-specific models is inefficient and achieving robust cross-domain generalisation within a unified model remains difficult. This paper introduces DRAMA (Domain Retrieval using Adaptive Module Allocation), an energy- and parameter-efficient framework designed to reduce the environmental footprint of neural retrieval. DRAMA integrates domain-specific adapter modules with a dynamic gating mechanism that selects the most relevant domain knowledge for each query. New domains can be added efficiently through lightweight adapter training, avoiding full model retraining. We evaluate DRAMA on multiple Web retrieval benchmarks covering different domains. Our extensive evaluation shows that DRAMA achieves comparable effectiveness to domain-specific models while using only a fraction of their parameters and computational resources. These findings show that energy-aware model design can significantly improve scalability and sustainability in neural IR.