PyTorch Geometric (PyG)

PyG is the standard library for Graph Neural Networks built on PyTorch. It provides data structures for graphs, 60+ GNN layer implementations, scalable mini-batch training, and support for heterogeneous graphs.

Installation

Reviewed released torch-geometric 2.8.0.post1 (2026-10-01); CPU examples tested with Python 3.13 / PyTorch 2.14.1. Rolling latest docs identify 2.9.0; check the installed release before adopting new APIs. PyG 2.8 requires PyTorch 2.9+; its original release table covers 2.9–2.12. Our 2.14.1 core tests do not establish every extension/backend combination.

# Install the PyTorch build for your platform from https://pytorch.org/get-started/locally/
uv pip install torch==2.14.1
uv pip install torch-geometric==2.8.0.post1
python -c "import torch, torch_geometric; print(torch.__version__, torch.version.cuda, torch_geometric.__version__)"

Basic tensor-based layers need no extensions. Neighbor sampling requires pyg-lib or torch-sparse; spatial k-NN operators require pyg-lib in 2.8. torch-cluster and torch-spline-conv are deprecated and ignored. Inspect the wheel index for your exact Python/OS/Torch/CUDA tuple. Never install wheels for a different Torch release merely because core imports succeed. The tested macOS ARM CPU extension is below; choose a different matching wheel for other platforms, and verify its operators:

uv pip install --only-binary=:all: "pyg-lib==0.9.0+pt214" \
  -f https://data.pyg.org/whl/torch-2.14.0+cpu.html

Conda packages are no longer provided for Torch >2.5. See installation and 2.8 release changes. Optional sampling/GPU/distributed/download examples below are illustrative unless covered by the CPU checks in review notes.

Core Concepts

Graph Data: Data and HeteroData

A graph lives in a Data object. The key attributes:

from torch_geometric.data import Data

data = Data(
    x=node_features,          # [num_nodes, num_node_features]
    edge_index=edge_index,     # [2, num_edges] — COO format, dtype=torch.long
    edge_attr=edge_features,   # [num_edges, num_edge_features]
    y=labels,                  # node-level [num_nodes, *] or graph-level [1, *]
    pos=positions,             # [num_nodes, num_dimensions] (for point clouds/spatial)
)

edge_index format is critical: it's a [2, num_edges] tensor where edge_index[0] = source nodes, edge_index[1] = target nodes. It is NOT a list of tuples. If you have edge pairs as rows, transpose and call .contiguous():

# If edges are [[src1, dst1], [src2, dst2], ...] — transpose first:
edge_index = edge_pairs.t().contiguous()

For undirected graphs, include both directions: edge (0,1) needs both [0,1] and [1,0] in edge_index.

If node features are absent, set data.num_nodes explicitly from the node table. Inferring it from edge_index.max() + 1 misses isolated nodes, which can corrupt batching offsets and outputs. Check data.validate(raise_on_error=True) after construction, including an edge-free or isolated-node case.

For heterogeneous graphs, use HeteroData — see the Heterogeneous Graphs section below.

Datasets

PyG bundles many standard datasets that auto-download and preprocess:

from torch_geometric.datasets import Planetoid, TUDataset

# Single-graph node classification (Cora, Citeseer, Pubmed)
dataset = Planetoid(root='./data/Cora', name='Cora', split='public')
data = dataset[0]  # single graph with train/val/test masks

# Multi-graph classification (ENZYMES, MUTAG, IMDB-BINARY, etc.)
dataset = TUDataset(root='./data/TU', name='ENZYMES')
# dataset[0], dataset[1], ... are individual graphs

Common datasets by task:

• Node classification: Planetoid (Cora/Citeseer/Pubmed), OGB (ogbn-arxiv, ogbn-products, ogbn-mag)
• Graph classification: TUDataset (MUTAG, ENZYMES, PROTEINS, IMDB-BINARY), OGB (ogbg-molhiv)
• Link prediction: OGB (ogbl-collab, ogbl-citation2)
• Molecular: QM7b, QM9, MoleculeNet
• Point cloud/mesh: ShapeNet, ModelNet(name="10" or "40"), FAUST (manual download)

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