Matrix multiplication is just an effective representation for the dense graph structures. The same graphs could be implemented in other ways (adjacency list, ed

Matrix multiplication is just an effective representation for the dense graph structures. The same graphs could be implemented in other ways (adjacency list, edge list), perform the same overall logic, without doing vector/matrix/tensor math. It seems like the magic is in the overall idea of neurons and networks of them following increasingly interesting architectures and training mechanisms. But because these graphs are mostly dense and involve numerical operations, matrices/tensors are a great implementation.