Efficient Parallelization of Message Passing Neural Network Potentials for Large-Scale Molecular Dynamics

Machine learning potentials have achieved great success in accelerating atomistic simulations, among which message passing neural networks (MPNNs) have become increasingly prevalent thanks to their superior accuracy. However, MPNN potentials are difficult to be efficiently parallelized due to their semilocal architecture. Here, we propose an efficient scheme for parallelizing MPNN potentials, in which additional data communication is minimized among local atoms only in each layer without redundant computation, thus scaling linearly with the message-passing depth. This scheme is first tested on several bulk systemsincluding silver, liquid water, and high-entropy alloysdemonstrating excellent strong- and weak-scaling performance up to over 100 million atoms, extending MPNN applicability to an unprecedented scale. Moreover, we develop a universal potential trained on a comprehensive data set of C, H, O, and N, and leverage this parallel algorithm to perform efficient reactive MD simulations of graphene formation via acetylene-oxygen detonation, a central process in carbon nanomaterial synthesis. With atomic resolution, our simulations reveal how oxygen actively mediates the reaction network and identify the O₂/C₂H₂ ratio that optimally favors graphene-precursor formation, offering mechanistic insights into the experimentally observed necessity of oxygen for controlling graphene quality and yield. The proposed parallelization framework can be readily extended to other MPNN potentials.