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arXiv · 2603.06567

A recipe for scalable attention-based MLIPs: unlocking long-range accuracy with all-to-all node attention

Eric Qu·Brandon M. Wood·Aditi S. Krishnapriyan·Zachary W. Ulissi
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Abstract

Machine-learning interatomic potentials (MLIPs) have advanced rapidly, with many top models relying on strong physics-based inductive biases. However, as models scale to larger systems like biomolecules and electrolytes, they struggle to accurately capture long-range (LR) interactions, leading current approaches to rely on explicit physics-based terms or components. In this work, we propose AllScAIP, a straightforward, attention-based, and energy-conserving MLIP model that scales to O(100 million) training samples. It addresses the long-range challenge using an all-to-all node attention component that is data-driven. Extensive ablations reveal that in low-data/small-model regimes, inductive biases improve sample efficiency. However, as data and model size scale, these benefits diminish or even reverse, while all-to-all attention remains critical for capturing LR interactions. Our model achieves state-of-the-art energy/force accuracy on molecular systems, as well as a number of physics-based evaluations (OMol25), while being competitive on materials (OMat24) and catalysts (OC20). Furthermore, it enables stable, long-timescale MD simulations that accurately recover experimental observables, including density and heat of vaporization predictions.

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Eric Qu, Brandon M. Wood, Aditi S. Krishnapriyan, Zachary W. Ulissi. 2026-03-06. A recipe for scalable attention-based MLIPs: unlocking long-range accuracy with all-to-all node attention. https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.06567

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