Computationally Efficient Graph Modelling with Refined Graph Random Features

16 Sept 2025 (modified: 11 Feb 2026)Submitted to ICLR 2026EveryoneRevisionsBibTeXCC BY 4.0
Keywords: Monte Carlo, graph, random walk, kernel
TL;DR: Novel random walk-based algorithm to efficiently estimate graph node kernels
Abstract: We propose refined GRFs (GRFs++), a new class of Graph Random Features (GRFs) for efficient and accurate computations involving kernels defined on the nodes of a graph. GRFs++ resolve some of the long-standing limitations of regular GRFs, including difficulty modeling relationships between more distant nodes. They reduce dependence on sampling long graph random walks via a novel walk-stitching technique, concatenating several shorter walks without breaking unbiasedness. By applying these techniques, GRFs++ inherit the approximation quality provided by longer walks but with greater efficiency, trading sequential, inefficient sampling of a long walk for parallel computation of short walks and matrix-matrix multiplication. Furthermore, GRFs++ extend the simplistic GRFs walk termination mechanism (Bernoulli schemes with fixed halting probabilities) to a broader class of strategies, applying general distributions on the walks' lengths. This improves the approximation accuracy of graph kernels, without incurring extra computational cost. We provide empirical evaluations to showcase all our claims and complement our results with theoretical analysis.
Primary Area: probabilistic methods (Bayesian methods, variational inference, sampling, UQ, etc.)
Submission Number: 7704
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