# MatRIS: Toward Reliable and Efficient Pretrained Machine Learning Interatomic Potentials

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.02002 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.02002/

## Key facts

- Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 31 of its 82 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 Mar 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 31)

- [How Powerful are Graph Neural Networks?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.00826/) (2018)
- [How Attentive are Graph Attention Networks?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.14491/) (2021)
- [E(3)-Equivariant Graph Neural Networks for Data-Efficient and Accurate Interatomic Potentials](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.03164/) (2021)
- [SchNet: A continuous-filter convolutional neural network for modeling quantum interactions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.08566/) (2017)
- [Directional Message Passing for Molecular Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.03123/) (2020)
- [MACE: Higher Order Equivariant Message Passing Neural Networks for Fast and Accurate Force Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.07697/) (2022)
- [Equivariant message passing for the prediction of tensorial properties and molecular spectra](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.03150/) (2021)
- [GemNet: Universal Directional Graph Neural Networks for Molecules](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.08903/) (2021)
- [Equiformer: Equivariant Graph Attention Transformer for 3D Atomistic Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.11990/) (2022)
- [Learning Local Equivariant Representations for Large-Scale Atomistic Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.05249/) (2022)
- [Fast and Uncertainty-Aware Directional Message Passing for Non-Equilibrium Molecules](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.14115/) (2020)
- [The Open Catalyst 2020 (OC20) Dataset and Community Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.09990/) (2020)
- [EquiformerV2: Improved Equivariant Transformer for Scaling to Higher-Degree Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.12059/) (2023)
- [TorchMD-NET: Equivariant Transformers for Neural Network based Molecular Potentials](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.02541/) (2022)
- [Spherical Message Passing for 3D Graph Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.05013/) (2021)
- [Pre-training via Denoising for Molecular Property Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.00133/) (2022)
- [The Open Catalyst 2022 (OC22) Dataset and Challenges for Oxide Electrocatalysts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.08917/) (2022)
- [Forces are not Enough: Benchmark and Critical Evaluation for Machine Learning Force Fields with Molecular Simulations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.07237/) (2022)
- [Learning Smooth and Expressive Interatomic Potentials for Physical Property Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.12147/) (2025)
- [Less is more: sampling chemical space with active learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.09319/) (2018)
- [ComENet: Towards Complete and Efficient Message Passing for 3D Molecular Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.08515/) (2022)
- [GemNet-OC: Developing Graph Neural Networks for Large and Diverse Molecular Simulation Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.02782/) (2022)
- [A new perspective on building efficient and expressive 3D equivariant graph neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.04757/) (2023)
- [The Importance of Being Scalable: Improving the Speed and Accuracy of Neural Network Interatomic Potentials Across Chemical Domains](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.24169/) (2024)
- [Smooth, exact rotational symmetrization for deep learning on point clouds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.19302/) (2023)
- [A practical guide to machine learning interatomic potentials -- Status and future](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.09814/) (2025)
- [The dark side of the forces: assessing non-conservative force models for atomistic machine learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.11569/) (2024)
- [Generalizing Denoising to Non-Equilibrium Structures Improves Equivariant Force Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.09549/) (2024)
- [Overcoming systematic softening in universal machine learning interatomic potentials by fine-tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.07105/) (2024)
- [Training a Foundation Model for Materials on a Budget](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.16067/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [CrystalREPA: Transferring Physical Priors from Universal MLIPs to Crystal Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.08960/) (2026)
- [Breaking the Training Barrier of Billion-Parameter Universal Machine Learning Interatomic Potentials](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.15821/) (2026)
- [Compact SO(3) Equivariant Atomistic Foundation Models via Structural Pruning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.08885/) (2026)
- [Benchmark Dataset for Catalysis on 2D MXenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.00794/) (2026)
- [A strategic roadmap for an atomistic machine-learning ecosystem](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.39090/) (2026)
- [Origins of Universal Machine Learning Force-Field Errors in Multicomponent Materials](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.09837/) (2026)
- [LunaTP: Enabling Efficient and Scalable Tensor Product for Equivariant MLIPs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.18393/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Foundation MLIPs demonstrate broad applicability across diverse material systems and have emerged as a powerful and transformative paradigm in chemical and computational materials science. Equivariant MLIPs achieve state-of-the-art accuracy in a wide range of benchmarks by incorporating equivariant inductive bias. However, the reliance on tensor products and high-degree representations makes them computationally costly. This raises a fundamental question: as quantum mechanical-based datasets continue to expand, can we develop a more compact model to thoroughly exploit high-dimensional atomic interactions? In this work, we present MatRIS (Materials Representation and Interaction Simulation), an invariant MLIP that introduces attention-based modeling of three-body interactions. MatRIS leverages a novel separable attention mechanism with linear complexity O(N), enabling both scalability and expressiveness. MatRIS delivers accuracy comparable to that of leading equivariant models on a wide range of popular benchmarks (Matbench-Discovery, MatPES, MDR phonon, Molecular dataset, etc). Taking Matbench-Discovery as an example, MatRIS achieves an F1 score of up to 0.847 and attains comparable accuracy at a lower training cost. The work indicates that our carefully designed invariant models can match or exceed the accuracy of equivariant models at a fraction of the cost, shedding light on the development of accurate and efficient MLIPs.