RAG-GFM: Overcoming In-Memory Bottlenecks in Graph Foundation Models via Retrieval-Augmented Generation

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Yuan, Haonan, Sun, Qingyun, Tao, Jiacheng, Fu, Xingcheng, Li, Jianxin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866909999647686656
author Yuan, Haonan
Sun, Qingyun
Tao, Jiacheng
Fu, Xingcheng
Li, Jianxin
author_facet Yuan, Haonan
Sun, Qingyun
Tao, Jiacheng
Fu, Xingcheng
Li, Jianxin
contents Graph Foundation Models (GFMs) have emerged as a frontier in graph learning, which are expected to deliver transferable representations across diverse tasks. However, GFMs remain constrained by in-memory bottlenecks: they attempt to encode knowledge into model parameters, which limits semantic capacity, introduces heavy lossy compression with conflicts, and entangles graph representation with the knowledge in ways that hinder efficient adaptation, undermining scalability and interpretability. In this work,we propose RAG-GFM, a Retrieval-Augmented Generation aided Graph Foundation Model that offloads knowledge from parameters and complements parameterized learning. To externalize graph knowledge, we build a dual-modal unified retrieval module, where a semantic store from prefix-structured text and a structural store from centrality-based motif. To preserve heterogeneous information, we design a dual-view alignment objective that contrasts both modalities to capture both content and relational patterns. To enable efficient downstream adaptation, we perform in-context augmentation to enrich supporting instances with retrieved texts and motifs as contextual evidence. Extensive experiments on five benchmark graph datasets demonstrate that RAG-GFM consistently outperforms 13 state-of-the-art baselines in both cross-domain node and graph classification, achieving superior effectiveness and efficiency.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_15124
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle RAG-GFM: Overcoming In-Memory Bottlenecks in Graph Foundation Models via Retrieval-Augmented Generation
Yuan, Haonan
Sun, Qingyun
Tao, Jiacheng
Fu, Xingcheng
Li, Jianxin
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Graph Foundation Models (GFMs) have emerged as a frontier in graph learning, which are expected to deliver transferable representations across diverse tasks. However, GFMs remain constrained by in-memory bottlenecks: they attempt to encode knowledge into model parameters, which limits semantic capacity, introduces heavy lossy compression with conflicts, and entangles graph representation with the knowledge in ways that hinder efficient adaptation, undermining scalability and interpretability. In this work,we propose RAG-GFM, a Retrieval-Augmented Generation aided Graph Foundation Model that offloads knowledge from parameters and complements parameterized learning. To externalize graph knowledge, we build a dual-modal unified retrieval module, where a semantic store from prefix-structured text and a structural store from centrality-based motif. To preserve heterogeneous information, we design a dual-view alignment objective that contrasts both modalities to capture both content and relational patterns. To enable efficient downstream adaptation, we perform in-context augmentation to enrich supporting instances with retrieved texts and motifs as contextual evidence. Extensive experiments on five benchmark graph datasets demonstrate that RAG-GFM consistently outperforms 13 state-of-the-art baselines in both cross-domain node and graph classification, achieving superior effectiveness and efficiency.
title RAG-GFM: Overcoming In-Memory Bottlenecks in Graph Foundation Models via Retrieval-Augmented Generation
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.15124