NEURAL NETWORK ARCHITECTURE SEARCH OVER COMPLEX BLOCK ARCHITECTURES

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for performing neural architecture search for machine learning models. In one aspect, a method comprises receiving training data for a machine learning, generating a plurality of candidate neural networks for performing the machine learning task, wherein each candidate neural network comprises a plurality of instances of a layer block composed of a plurality of layers, for each candidate neural network, selecting a respective type for each of the plurality of layers from a set of layer types that comprises, training the candidate neural network and evaluating performance scores for the trained candidate neural networks as applied to the machine learning task, and determining a final neural network for performing the machine learning task based at least on the performance scores for the candidate neural networks.