Time-Aware Prior Fitted Networks for Zero-Shot Forecasting with Exogenous Variables

arXiv:2603.15802v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: In many time series forecasting settings, the target time series is accompanied by exogenous covariates, such as promotions and prices in retail demand; temperature in energy load; calendar and holiday indicators for traffic or sales; and grid load or fuel costs in electricity pricing. Ignoring these exogenous signals can substantially degrade forecasting accuracy, particularly when they drive spikes, discontinuities, or regime and phase changes in the target series. Most current time series foundation models (e.g., Chronos, Sundial, TimesFM, TimeMoE, TimeLLM, and LagLlama) ignore exogenous covariates and make forecasts solely from the numerical time series history, thereby limiting their performance. In this paper, we develop ApolloPFN, a prior-data fitted network (PFN) that is time-aware (unlike prior PFNs) and that natively incorporates exogenous covariates (unlike prior univariate forecasters). Our design introduces two major advances: (i) a synthetic data generation framework that injects realistic temporal patterns, structural changes, and exogenous dependencies into the PFN prior; and (ii) time-aware architectural modifications that embed inductive biases needed to exploit temporal context. We demonstrate that ApolloPFN outperforms existing baselines across several forecasting benchmarks with exogenous information, including M5, electric price forecasting, UCI Air Quality, and Solar Energy datasets.

Abstract:In many time series forecasting settings, the target time series is accompanied by exogenous covariates, such as promotions and prices in retail demand; temperature in energy load; calendar and holiday indicators for traffic or sales; and grid load or fuel costs in electricity pricing. Ignoring these exogenous signals can substantially degrade forecasting accuracy, particularly when they drive spikes, discontinuities, or regime and phase changes in the target series. Most current time series foundation models (e.g., Chronos, Sundial, TimesFM, TimeMoE, TimeLLM, and LagLlama) ignore exogenous covariates and make forecasts solely from the numerical time series history, thereby limiting their performance. In this paper, we develop ApolloPFN, a prior-data fitted network (PFN) that is time-aware (unlike prior PFNs) and that natively incorporates exogenous covariates (unlike prior univariate forecasters). Our design introduces two major advances: (i) a synthetic data generation framework that injects realistic temporal patterns, structural changes, and exogenous dependencies into the PFN prior; and (ii) time-aware architectural modifications that embed inductive biases needed to exploit temporal context. We demonstrate that ApolloPFN outperforms existing baselines across several forecasting benchmarks with exogenous information, including M5, electric price forecasting, UCI Air Quality, and Solar Energy datasets.

Machine Learning (cs.LG)

arXiv:2603.15802 [cs.LG]

(or arXiv:2603.15802v2 [cs.LG] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.15802 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

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Time-Aware Prior Fitted Networks for Zero-Shot Forecasting with Exogenous Variables

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