From Finite Cayley Graphs to Growth of Infinite Groups

Abstract

Graph neural networks (GNNs) have recently been shown to learn algebraic properties of finite groups from their Cayley graphs [1,2]. In this work, we investigate whether such models generalize to infinite finitely generated groups. Motivated by Gromov's theorem [3], a GNN is trained and validated exclusively on finite complete and truncated Cayley graphs, and then evaluated, without retraining, on truncated Cayley graphs of unseen infinite groups. The evaluation includes free abelian groups of various ranks, the discrete Heisenberg group, the infinite dihedral group, free groups, and direct products with both infinite abelian and finite groups. The results show strong generalization across these families, suggesting that finite Cayley graphs encode sufficient local geometric information to transfer to the infinite setting. Overall, this provides evidence that GNNs trained solely on finite groups can capture geometric features related to the growth of infinite finitely generated groups.