A system and method for leveraging grid computing for node based interactive workflows is disclosed. A server system spawns a server process that receives node graph data and input attributes from a computing device, processes the data, caches the processed data, and transmits the processed data over a network to a computing device. The computing device runs a node graph application instance comprising proxy nodes configured to initiate a request to process node graph data at the server system. The server processed node graph data is displayed on the computing device. A plurality of computing devices may collaborate on a complex node graph where the node graph data processing is distributed over a plurality of servers.