DiffGraph: Heterogeneous Graph Diffusion Model
On the map: Diffusion models → Flow matching, time series and science
Abstract (arXiv)
Recent advances in Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have revolutionized graph-structured data modeling, yet traditional GNNs struggle with complex heterogeneous structures prevalent in real-world scenarios. Despite progress in handling heterogeneous interactions, two fundamental challenges persist: noisy data significantly compromising embedding quality and learning performance, and existing methods' inability to capture intricate semantic transitions among heterogeneous relations, which impacts downstream predictions. To address these fundamental issues, we present the Heterogeneous Graph Diffusion Model (DiffGraph), a pioneering framework that introduces an innovative cross-view denoising strategy. This advanced approach transforms auxiliary heterogeneous data into target semantic spaces, enabling precise distillation of task-relevant information. At its core, DiffGraph features a sophisticated latent heterogeneous graph diffusion mechanism, implementing a novel forward and backward diffusion process for superior noise management. This methodology achieves simultaneous heterogeneous graph denoising and cross-type transition, while significantly simplifying graph generation through its latent-space diffusion capabilities. Through rigorous experimental validation on both public and industrial datasets, we demonstrate that DiffGraph consistently surpasses existing methods in link prediction and node classification tasks, establishing new benchmarks for robustness and efficiency in heterogeneous graph processing. The model implementation is publicly available at: https://github.com/HKUDS/DiffGraph.
Key facts. Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Flow matching, time series and science, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 40 of its 52 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 4 Jan 2025.
Builds on
40 of 52 references.
References · 40
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28 more
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- 2019Strategies for Pre-training Graph Neural Networkscited by 964
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Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2025: 3; 2026: 3.
6 papers.
- 2025Masked Diffusion for Generative Recommendationcited by 5
- 2025Diffusion Models in Recommendation Systems: A Surveycited by 3
- 2025Learning Robust Heterogeneous Graph Representations via Contrastive-Reconstruction under Sparse Semanticscited by 0
- 2026RaDAR: Relation-aware Diffusion-Asymmetric Graph Contrastive Learning for Recommendationcited by 0
- 2026HeterSEED: Semantics-Structure Decoupling for Heterogeneous Graph Learning under Heterophilycited by 0
- 2026L2IR: Revealing Latent Intent in Graph Fraud Detectioncited by 0
- 2026L2IR: Revealing Latent Intent in Graph Fraud Detection25 May 2026
- 2026HeterSEED: Semantics-Structure Decoupling for Heterogeneous Graph Learning under Heterophily6 May 2026
- 2026RaDAR: Relation-aware Diffusion-Asymmetric Graph Contrastive Learning for Recommendation17 Mar 2026
- 2025Masked Diffusion for Generative Recommendation28 Nov 2025
- 2025Learning Robust Heterogeneous Graph Representations via Contrastive-Reconstruction under Sparse Semantics7 Jun 2025
- 2025Diffusion Models in Recommendation Systems: A Survey17 Jan 2025
Similar, not cited
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- 2024Diffusing to the Top: Boost Graph Neural Networks with Minimal Hyperparameter Tuning
- 2025Graph Representation Learning with Diffusion Generative Models
- 2026Generative Diffusion Models of Stochastic Graph Signals
- 2024Cross-Domain Graph Data Scaling: A Showcase with Diffusion Models
- 2025Graffe: Graph Representation Learning via Diffusion Probabilistic Models
- 2026Efficient Graph Generation via Direct Prediction and Flow Matching
- 2026From Uniform to Learned Graph Priors: Diffusion for Structure Discovery
- 2025Do Graph Diffusion Models Accurately Capture and Generate Substructure Distributions?