Toward Effective Multimodal Graph Foundation Model: A Divide-and-Conquer Based Approach

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Liu, Sicheng, Li, Xunkai, Su, Daohan, Zhang, Ru, Qin, Hongchao, Li, Ronghua, Wang, Guoren
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Liu, Sicheng
Li, Xunkai
Su, Daohan
Zhang, Ru
Qin, Hongchao
Li, Ronghua
Wang, Guoren
author_facet Liu, Sicheng
Li, Xunkai
Su, Daohan
Zhang, Ru
Qin, Hongchao
Li, Ronghua
Wang, Guoren
contents Graph Foundation Models (GFMs) have achieved remarkable success in generalizing across diverse domains. However, they mainly focus on Text-Attributed Graphs (TAGs), leaving Multimodal-Attributed Graphs (MAGs) largely untapped. Developing Multimodal Graph Foundation Models (MGFMs) allows for leveraging the rich multimodal information in MAGs, and extends applicability to broader types of downstream tasks. While recent MGFMs integrate diverse modality information, our empirical investigation reveals two fundamental limitations of existing MGFMs: (1)they fail to explicitly model modality interaction, essential for capturing intricate cross-modal semantics beyond simple aggregation, and (2)they exhibit sub-optimal modality alignment, which is critical for bridging the significant semantic disparity between distinct modal spaces. To address these challenges, we propose PLANET (graPh topoLogy-aware modAlity iNteraction and alignmEnT), a novel framework employing a Divide-and-Conquer strategy to decouple modality interaction and alignment across distinct granularities. At the embedding granularity, (1)Embedding-wise Domain Gating (EDG) performs local semantic enrichment by adaptively infusing topology-aware cross-modal context, achieving modality interaction. At the node granularity, (2)Node-wise Discretization Retrieval (NDR) ensures global modality alignment by constructing a Discretized Semantic Representation Space (DSRS) to bridge modality gaps. Extensive experiments demonstrate that PLANET significantly outperforms state-of-the-art baselines across diverse graph-centric and multimodal generative tasks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_04116
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Toward Effective Multimodal Graph Foundation Model: A Divide-and-Conquer Based Approach
Liu, Sicheng
Li, Xunkai
Su, Daohan
Zhang, Ru
Qin, Hongchao
Li, Ronghua
Wang, Guoren
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Social and Information Networks
Graph Foundation Models (GFMs) have achieved remarkable success in generalizing across diverse domains. However, they mainly focus on Text-Attributed Graphs (TAGs), leaving Multimodal-Attributed Graphs (MAGs) largely untapped. Developing Multimodal Graph Foundation Models (MGFMs) allows for leveraging the rich multimodal information in MAGs, and extends applicability to broader types of downstream tasks. While recent MGFMs integrate diverse modality information, our empirical investigation reveals two fundamental limitations of existing MGFMs: (1)they fail to explicitly model modality interaction, essential for capturing intricate cross-modal semantics beyond simple aggregation, and (2)they exhibit sub-optimal modality alignment, which is critical for bridging the significant semantic disparity between distinct modal spaces. To address these challenges, we propose PLANET (graPh topoLogy-aware modAlity iNteraction and alignmEnT), a novel framework employing a Divide-and-Conquer strategy to decouple modality interaction and alignment across distinct granularities. At the embedding granularity, (1)Embedding-wise Domain Gating (EDG) performs local semantic enrichment by adaptively infusing topology-aware cross-modal context, achieving modality interaction. At the node granularity, (2)Node-wise Discretization Retrieval (NDR) ensures global modality alignment by constructing a Discretized Semantic Representation Space (DSRS) to bridge modality gaps. Extensive experiments demonstrate that PLANET significantly outperforms state-of-the-art baselines across diverse graph-centric and multimodal generative tasks.
title Toward Effective Multimodal Graph Foundation Model: A Divide-and-Conquer Based Approach
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Social and Information Networks
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.04116