A method and system for performing a graph search, includes partitioning a graph into multiple independent regions that do not interfere with each other for a period of time. A state space abstraction is used to identify the independent regions. Then using parallel structured duplicate detection a search work load is distributed across multiple processing units to maximize an amount of time during which the independent regions are capable of being maintained independent. This allows the search of the multiple independent regions of the partitioned graph to be undertaken in parallel.