Wasserstein Embedding for Graph Learning
Abstract
We present Wasserstein Embedding for Graph Learning (WEGL), a novel and fast framework for embedding entire graphs in a vector space, in which various machine learning models are applicable for graph-level prediction tasks. We leverage new insights on defining similarity between graphs as a function of the similarity between their node embedding distributions. Specifically, we use the Wasserstein distance to measure the dissimilarity between node embeddings of different graphs. Unlike prior work, we avoid pairwise calculation of distances between graphs and reduce the computational complexity from quadratic to linear in the number of graphs. WEGL calculates Monge maps from a reference distribution to each node embedding and, based on these maps, creates a fixed-sized vector representation of the graph. We evaluate our new graph embedding approach on various benchmark graph-property prediction tasks, showing state-of-the-art classification performance while having superior computational efficiency. The code is available at.
Benchmark Results
Tested on 6 datasets 4 baseline values reported too low
Tables show presented results in global context (best 3 papers + GCN + MLP).
TU Dortmund
| # | Model | Accuracy ↑ | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | MSH-GNN | 0.9910
±0.0030 | |
| 2 | ID-GNN+BEC | 0.9830
±0.0360 | |
| 3 | SupCosine | 0.9830
±0.0250 | |
| 39 | GIN | 0.9330
±0.0290 | |
| 159 | WL | 0.9040
±0.0570 best reported | best at pub: Understanding Isomorphism Bias in Graph Data Sets (2019) best today: How Powerful are $K$-hop Message Passing Graph Neural Networks (NeurIPS 2022) |
| 263 | WEGL + GBDT (Concat) | 0.8930
±0.0660 | This paper |
| 321 | WEGL + RF + Concat | 0.8830
±0.0510 | This paper |
| 403 | MLP | 0.8660
±0.0495 | |
| 491 | WEGL + SVM-RBF | 0.8400
±0.0760 | This paper |
| 567 | WEGL + MLP (Concat) | 0.8200
±0.0620 | This paper |
| # | Model | Accuracy ↑ | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WL-MLP | 0.9954 | |
| 2 | GIN | 0.9934 | |
| 3 | GCN | 0.9727 | |
| 131 | GraphSAGE | 0.8200
±0.0100 | |
| 303 | WEGL + GBDT (Concat) | 0.7840
±0.0160 | This paper |
| 311 | WEGL + GBDT + Avg | 0.7820
±0.0290 | This paper |
| 379 | WEGL + GBDT + Final | 0.7640
±0.0250 | This paper |
| 507 | WEGL + SVM - RBF (Concat) | 0.6780
±0.0210 | This paper |
| 524 | WEGL + SVM - RBF + Avg | 0.6510
±0.0210 | This paper |
| 528 | WEGL + SVM - RBF + Final | 0.6490
±0.0230 | This paper |
| 547 | WEGL + MLP (Concat) | 0.6130
±0.0460 | This paper |
| 554 | WEGL + MLP (Avg) | 0.6000
±0.0380 | This paper |
| 556 | WEGL + MLP (Final) | 0.5990
±0.0370 | This paper |
| 562 | WEGL + SVM - Linear (Concat) | 0.5890
±0.0720 | This paper |
| 564 | WEGL + SVM - Linear + Final | 0.5740
±0.0500 | This paper |
| 568 | WEGL + SVM - Linear (Avg) | 0.5620
±0.0360 | This paper |
| # | Model | Accuracy ↑ | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | MSH-GNN | 0.9410
±0.0330 | |
| 2 | GRDL | 0.8260
±0.0120 | |
| 3 | GMN | 0.8225 | |
| 32 | GIN | 0.7880
±0.0410 | |
| 63 | GraphNorm | 0.7740
±0.0490 | This paper |
| 108 | WEGL + Random Forest | 0.7650
±0.0420 | This paper |
| 126 | CapsGNN | 0.7630
±0.0360 | This paper |
| 129 | WEGL + GBDT | 0.7630
±0.0390 | This paper |
| 132 | DGCNN | 0.7626 best reported | best at pub: Graph Convolutional Networks with EigenPooling (KDD 2019) best today: Orthogonal Graph Neural Networks (AAAI 2021) Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance. |
| 139 | RetGK | 0.7620
±0.0050 best reported | best today: On Structural Expressive Power of Graph Transformers (KDD 2023) |
| 151 | WEGL + SVM-RBF | 0.7600
±0.0440 | This paper |
| 149 | MLP | 0.7600
±0.0320 | |
| 178 | DGK | 0.7568
±0.0054 best reported | best at pub: Graph Capsule Convolutional Neural Networks (ICML 2018) best today: Hierarchical Graph Capsule Network (AAAI 2020) |
| 190 | WL | 0.7560
±0.0040 best reported | best at pub: On Valid Optimal Assignment Kernels and Applications to Graph Classification (NeurIPS 2016) |
| 300 | WWL | 0.7430
±0.0060 | This paper |
| # | Model | Accuracy ↑ | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WL-MLP | 0.9792 | |
| 2 | MSH-GNN | 0.9640
±0.0070 | |
| 3 | CoCN | 0.8722
±0.0013 | |
| 23 | GCN | 0.8260
±0.0220 | |
| 82 | RetGK | 0.8100
±0.0030 best reported | best at pub: Graph Neural Tangent Kernel: Fusing Graph Neural Networks with Graph Kernels (NeurIPS 2019) best today: Graph Self-Supervised Learning with Learnable Structural and Positional Encodings (WWW 2025) |
| 98 | WEGL + GBDT | 0.8060
±0.0200 | This paper |
| 114 | GraphNorm | 0.8020
±0.0100 | This paper |
| 133 | WEGL + Random Forest | 0.7980
±0.0150 | This paper |
| 136 | GraphSAGE | 0.7390
±0.0170 | prev best: Memory-Based Graph Networks (ICLR 2020) |
| 140 | CapsGNN | 0.7962
±0.0091 best reported | best today: Graph Structure Refinement with Energy-based Contrastive Learning (AAAI 2024) Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance. |
| 151 | MLP | 0.7920
±0.0240 | |
| 153 | WL | 0.7910
±0.0010 best reported | best at pub: On Valid Optimal Assignment Kernels and Applications to Graph Classification (NeurIPS 2016) |
| 167 | WEGL + SVM-RBF | 0.7860
±0.0100 | This paper |
| 191 | DGCNN | 0.7759
±0.0224 best reported | best at pub: Graph U-Nets (2019) best today: Explainable Graph Representation Learning via Graph Pattern Analysis (IJCAI 2025) |
| 265 | AWE | 0.7393
±0.0194 best reported | best today: Beyond Message Passing: Neural Graph Pattern Machine (ICML 2025) Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance. |
| 274 | DGK | 0.7310
±0.0030 | prev best: Graph Capsule Convolutional Neural Networks (ICML 2018) Improvement within reported uncertainty; not highlighted. |
| # | Model | Accuracy ↑ | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | GMN | 0.7866 | |
| 2 | MemGNN | 0.7550 | |
| 3 | TFGW SP | 0.7510
±0.0500 | |
| 7 | WWL | 0.7325
±0.0087 best reported | best at pub: Wasserstein Weisfeiler-Lehman Graph Kernels (NeurIPS 2019) |
| 17 | GatedGCN | 0.7000
±0.0494 | |
| 18 | WL | 0.6950
±0.0320 best reported | best at pub: Dynamic Edge-Conditioned Filters in Convolutional Neural Networks on Graphs (2017) best today: Template based Graph Neural Network with Optimal Transport Distances (NeurIPS 2022) |
| 26 | GraphSAGE | 0.6817
±0.0545 | |
| 91 | WEGL + Random Forest | 0.6050
±0.0590 | This paper |
| 96 | WEGL + GBDT | 0.6000
±0.0630 | This paper |
| 107 | RetGK | 0.5910
±0.0110 | This paper |
| 118 | WEGL + SVM-RBF | 0.5730
±0.0420 | This paper |
| 119 | DGCNN | 0.5712 best reported | best at pub: Graph Convolutional Networks with EigenPooling (KDD 2019) |
| 124 | MLP | 0.5583
±0.0352 | |
| 127 | CapsGNN | 0.5531
±0.0423 best reported | best today: Contrastive Graph Few-Shot Learning (2022) Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance. |
| 145 | DGK | 0.5343
±0.0091 best reported | best at pub: Graph Capsule Convolutional Neural Networks (ICML 2018) |
| 169 | AWE | 0.3580
±0.0590 | prev best: Anonymous Walk Embeddings (ICML 2018) best today: Contrastive Graph Few-Shot Learning (2022) Improvement within reported uncertainty; not highlighted. |
OGB
| # | Model | ROC-AUC ↑ | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Multi-RF Fusion with Multi-GNN Blending | 0.8476
±0.0002 | |
| 2 | HyperFusion | 0.8475
±0.0003 | |
| 3 | PAS+FPs | 0.8420
±0.0015 | |
| 9 | GatedGCN | 0.8090
±0.0160 | |
| 58 | WEGL + Virtual Node + AutoML | 0.7910
±0.0030 | This paper |
| 70 | HIMP | 0.7880
±0.0080 | This paper |
| 71 | GCN+GraphNorm | 0.7880
±0.0100 | This paper |
| 78 | DeeperGCN | 0.7860
±0.0120 | This paper |
| 109 | GIN | 0.7780
±0.0182 | |
| 146 | GIN+virtual node | 0.7710
±0.0150 | This paper |
| 176 | WL + Virtual Node + Random Forest | 0.7650
±0.0180 | This paper |
| 184 | GCN | 0.7630
±0.0030 best reported | Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance. |
| 224 | WL + Random Forest | 0.7550
±0.0150 | This paper |
