A Hypergraph-Based Framework for Exploratory Business Intelligence

Mar 11, 2026·
Yunkai Lou
,
Shunyang Li
,
Longbin Lai
Jianke Yu
Jianke Yu
,
Wenyuan Yu
,
Ying Zhang
· 1 min read
Abstract
Business Intelligence (BI) analysis is evolving towards Exploratory BI, an iterative, multi-round exploration paradigm where analysts progressively refine their understanding. However, traditional BI systems impose critical limits for Exploratory BI: heavy reliance on expert knowledge, high computational costs, static schemas, and lack of reusability. We present ExBI, a novel system that introduces the hypergraph data model with operators, including Source, Join, and View, to enable dynamic schema evolution and materialized view reuse. Using sampling-based algorithms with provable estimation guarantees, ExBI addresses the computational bottlenecks, while maintaining analytical accuracy. Experiments on LDBC datasets demonstrate that ExBI achieves significant speedups over existing systems: on average 16.21x (up to 146.25x) compared to Neo4j and 46.67x (up to 230.53x) compared to MySQL, while maintaining high accuracy with an average error rate of only 0.27% for COUNT, enabling efficient and accurate large-scale exploratory BI workflows.
Type
Publication
arXiv preprint
Status
Open access
publications

arXiv preprint, 2026

Business Intelligence (BI) analysis is evolving towards Exploratory BI, an iterative, multi-round exploration paradigm where analysts progressively refine their understanding. However, traditional BI systems impose critical limits for Exploratory BI: heavy reliance on expert knowledge, high computational costs, static schemas, and lack of reusability. We present ExBI, a novel system that introduces the hypergraph data model with operators, including Source, Join, and View, to enable dynamic schema evolution and materialized view reuse. Using sampling-based algorithms with provable estimation guarantees, ExBI addresses the computational bottlenecks, while maintaining analytical accuracy. Experiments on LDBC datasets demonstrate that ExBI achieves significant speedups over existing systems: on average 16.21x (up to 146.25x) compared to Neo4j and 46.67x (up to 230.53x) compared to MySQL, while maintaining high accuracy with an average error rate of only 0.27% for COUNT, enabling efficient and accurate large-scale exploratory BI workflows.

Jianke Yu
Authors
Jianke Yu (he/him)
PhD (2026) in Graph Machine Learning & Databases
I completed my PhD at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in 2026, supervised by Prof. Ying Zhang, A/Prof. Lu Qin and Dr Hanchen Wang. My research develops machine learning algorithms for graph-structured data and database systems — graph neural network architectures, and learning-based methods that improve database and data-mining algorithms (fraud detection, graph similarity, supergraph search, malware detection). My work has appeared in KDD and IEEE TKDE. I am joining Zhejiang Gongshang University as a faculty member in 2027.