In this paper we consider a class of convex conic programming. In particular, we propose an inexact augmented Lagrangian (I-AL) method for solving this problem, in which the augmented Lagrangian subproblems are solved approximately by a variant of Nesterovs optimal first-order method. We show that the total number of first-order iterations of the proposed I-AL method for computing an $epsilon$-KKT solution is at most $mathcal{O}(epsilon^{-7/4})$. We also propose a modified I-AL method and show that it has an improved iteration-complexity $mathcal{O}(epsilon^{-1}logepsilon^{-1})$, which is so far the lowest complexity bound among all first-order I-AL type of methods for computing an $epsilon$-KKT solution. Our complexity analysis of the I-AL methods is mainly based on an analysis on inexact proximal point algorithm (PPA) and the link between the I-AL methods and inexact PPA. It is substantially different from the existing complexity analyses of the first-order I-AL methods in the literature, which typically regard the I-AL methods as an inexact dual gradient method. Compared to the mostly related I-AL methods cite{Lan16}, our modified I-AL method is more practically efficient and also applicable to a broader class of problems.
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