Zero-Shot Size Transfer for Neural ODEs on Sparse Random Graphs: Graphon Limits and Adjoint Convergence

Abstract

Graph Neural Differential Equations (GNDEs) model continuous-time graph dynamics by parameterizing Neural ODE velocity fields with Graph Neural Networks. Their local, size-independent filters suggest a zero-shot size-transfer principle: train on a small graph and deploy on larger, similar graphs without retraining. We develop a quantitative theory for this principle on sparse random graphs sampled from graphons. We consider Graphon Neural Differential Equations (Graphon-NDEs) and adjoint Graphon-NDEs as the infinite-node limits of the forward and adjoint GNDE systems, and establish well-posedness. For an $n$-node random graph with sparsity parameter $α_n$, we prove trajectory-wise convergence of GNDE solutions to Graphon-NDE solutions at rate $O((α_n n)^{-1/2})$, up to logarithmic factors, with high probability. We also establish uniform-in-time convergence bounds for adjoint systems governing hidden-state and parameter gradients. We further study discretize-then-optimize (DTO) and optimize-then-discretize (OTD) training. Under explicit Euler discretization with $M$ steps, we show that DTO and OTD are asymptotically consistent, with hidden-state and local parameter-gradient discrepancies of orders $O(1/M)$ and $O(1/M^2)$, respectively, up to sparsity and logarithmic factors. Experiments on HSBM and tent graphons support the theoretical rates, while zero-shot transfer experiments across four graphon classes demonstrate accurate deployment of learned GNDEs on larger independently sampled graphs.