In general, pattern recognition techniques require a high computational burden for learning the discriminating functions that are responsible to separate samples from distinct classes. As such, there are several studies that make effort to employ machine learning algorithms in the context of 'big data' classification problems. The research on this area ranges from Graphics Processing Units-based implementations to mathematical optimizations, being the main drawback of the former approaches to be dependent on the graphic video card. Here, we propose an architecture-independent optimization approach for the optimum-path forest (OPF) classifier, that is designed using a theoretical formulation that relates the minimum spanning tree with the minimum spanning forest generated by the OPF over the training dataset. The experiments have shown that the approach proposed can be faster than the traditional one in five public datasets, being also as accurate as the original OPF. (C) 2014 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.40121127Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) in Portugal [PTDC/BBB-BMD/3088/2012]Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) in Portugal [PTDC/BBB-BMD/3088/2012]