SGNNBench: A Holistic Evaluation of Spiking Graph Neural Network on Large-scale Graph

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhang, Huizhe, Li, Jintang, Zhu, Yuchang, Chen, Liang, Kuang, Li
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866915514373111808
author Zhang, Huizhe
Li, Jintang
Zhu, Yuchang
Chen, Liang
Kuang, Li
author_facet Zhang, Huizhe
Li, Jintang
Zhu, Yuchang
Chen, Liang
Kuang, Li
contents Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) are exemplary deep models designed for graph data. Message passing mechanism enables GNNs to effectively capture graph topology and push the performance boundaries across various graph tasks. However, the trend of developing such complex machinery for graph representation learning has become unsustainable on large-scale graphs. The computational and time overhead make it imperative to develop more energy-efficient GNNs to cope with the explosive growth of real-world graphs. Spiking Graph Neural Networks (SGNNs), which integrate biologically plausible learning via unique spike-based neurons, have emerged as a promising energy-efficient alternative. Different layers communicate with sparse and binary spikes, which facilitates computation and storage of intermediate graph representations. Despite the proliferation of SGNNs proposed in recent years, there is no systematic benchmark to explore the basic design principles of these brain-inspired networks on the graph data. To bridge this gap, we present SGNNBench to quantify progress in the field of SGNNs. Specifically, SGNNBench conducts an in-depth investigation of SGNNs from multiple perspectives, including effectiveness, energy efficiency, and architectural design. We comprehensively evaluate 9 state-of-the-art SGNNs across 18 datasets. Regarding efficiency, we empirically compare these baselines w.r.t model size, memory usage, and theoretical energy consumption to reveal the often-overlooked energy bottlenecks of SGNNs. Besides, we elaborately investigate the design space of SGNNs to promote the development of a general SGNN paradigm.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_21342
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle SGNNBench: A Holistic Evaluation of Spiking Graph Neural Network on Large-scale Graph
Zhang, Huizhe
Li, Jintang
Zhu, Yuchang
Chen, Liang
Kuang, Li
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) are exemplary deep models designed for graph data. Message passing mechanism enables GNNs to effectively capture graph topology and push the performance boundaries across various graph tasks. However, the trend of developing such complex machinery for graph representation learning has become unsustainable on large-scale graphs. The computational and time overhead make it imperative to develop more energy-efficient GNNs to cope with the explosive growth of real-world graphs. Spiking Graph Neural Networks (SGNNs), which integrate biologically plausible learning via unique spike-based neurons, have emerged as a promising energy-efficient alternative. Different layers communicate with sparse and binary spikes, which facilitates computation and storage of intermediate graph representations. Despite the proliferation of SGNNs proposed in recent years, there is no systematic benchmark to explore the basic design principles of these brain-inspired networks on the graph data. To bridge this gap, we present SGNNBench to quantify progress in the field of SGNNs. Specifically, SGNNBench conducts an in-depth investigation of SGNNs from multiple perspectives, including effectiveness, energy efficiency, and architectural design. We comprehensively evaluate 9 state-of-the-art SGNNs across 18 datasets. Regarding efficiency, we empirically compare these baselines w.r.t model size, memory usage, and theoretical energy consumption to reveal the often-overlooked energy bottlenecks of SGNNs. Besides, we elaborately investigate the design space of SGNNs to promote the development of a general SGNN paradigm.
title SGNNBench: A Holistic Evaluation of Spiking Graph Neural Network on Large-scale Graph
topic Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.21342