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The Universal Classifier for Graph Learning

arXiv 2609.36302 ↗First posted 28 Sep 2026cs.LGcited by 0

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Abstract (arXiv)

While foundation models have revolutionized natural language processing and computer vision by leveraging universal vocabularies, Graph Machine Learning (GML) remains fractured due to the absence of a unified feature and structural representation across diverse domains. Existing works claiming to be Graph Foundation Models (GFMs) are typically restricted to node-level predictions or require fixed feature dimensions, failing to provide a truly task-agnostic backbone for the full spectrum of graph learning applications. In this paper, we introduce the Universal Classifier (UC), which supports arbitrary feature and class cardinalities, unifying node-, edge-, and graph-level objectives under a single similarity-based classification objective. The UC reformulates all node-, edge-, and graph-level prediction tasks as maximizing similarity in the latent space: by lifting heterogeneous features and labels into 3D latent tensors, the model learns transferable features independent of specific input schemas. This architecture allows a single pre-trained model to generalize to node classification, node regression, and link prediction across unseen graphs with varying feature semantics. Experiments show strong zero-shot transfer performance across node-, link-, and graph-level tasks.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 40 of its 44 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 28 Sep 2026.

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References · 40

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28 more
  1. 2025TabICL: A Tabular Foundation Model for In-Context Learning on Large Datacited by 289
  2. 2021Neural Bellman-Ford Networks: A General Graph Neural Network Framework for Link Predictioncited by 275
  3. 2020Wiki-CS: A Wikipedia-Based Benchmark for Graph Neural Networkscited by 260
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  5. 2024All in One and One for All: A Simple yet Effective Method towards Cross-domain Graph Pretrainingcited by 86
  6. 2023Where Did the Gap Go? Reassessing the Long-Range Graph Benchmarkcited by 85
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  8. 2025Position: Graph Learning Will Lose Relevance Due To Poor Benchmarkscited by 53
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  14. 2025How Expressive are Knowledge Graph Foundation Models?cited by 23
  15. 2025Relational Deep Learning: Challenges, Foundations and Next-Generation Architecturescited by 23
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  17. 2024GraphLand: Evaluating Graph Machine Learning Models on Diverse Industrial Datacited by 20
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  19. 2025Equivariance Everywhere All At Once: A Recipe for Graph Foundation Modelscited by 17
  20. 2025Bringing Graphs to the Table: Zero-shot Node Classification via Tabular Foundation Modelscited by 16
  21. 2024A Foundation Model for Zero-shot Logical Query Reasoningcited by 14
  22. 20244DBInfer: A 4D Benchmarking Toolbox for Graph-Centric Predictive Modeling on Relational DBscited by 11
  23. 2026No Need to Train Your RDB Foundation Modelcited by 10
  24. 2026Learning Posterior Predictive Distributions for Node Classification from Synthetic Graph Priorscited by 10
  25. 2025Flock: A Knowledge Graph Foundation Model via Learning on Random Walkscited by 9
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  27. 2025HYPER: A Foundation Model for Inductive Link Prediction with Knowledge Hypergraphscited by 7
  28. 2025Building Bridges between Regression, Clustering, and Classificationcited by 2

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