Do we need equivariant models for molecule generation?

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2507.09753v1
• Date: Sun, 13 Jul 2025 19:16:11 GMT
• Title: Do we need equivariant models for molecule generation?
• Authors: Ewa M. Nowara, Joshua Rackers, Patricia Suriana, Pan Kessel, Max Shen, Andrew Martin Watkins, Michael Maser,
• Abstract summary: We investigate whether non-equivariant convolutional neural networks (CNNs) trained with rotation augmentations can learn equivariance and match the performance of equivariant models.<n>To our knowledge, this is the first study to analyze learned equivariance in generative tasks.
• Score: 2.336105667374686
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: Deep generative models are increasingly used for molecular discovery, with most recent approaches relying on equivariant graph neural networks (GNNs) under the assumption that explicit equivariance is essential for generating high-quality 3D molecules. However, these models are complex, difficult to train, and scale poorly. We investigate whether non-equivariant convolutional neural networks (CNNs) trained with rotation augmentations can learn equivariance and match the performance of equivariant models. We derive a loss decomposition that separates prediction error from equivariance error, and evaluate how model size, dataset size, and training duration affect performance across denoising, molecule generation, and property prediction. To our knowledge, this is the first study to analyze learned equivariance in generative tasks.

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