Several quantum algorithms for linear algebra problems, and in particular quantum machine learning problems, have been "dequantized" in the past few years. These dequantization results typically hold when classical algorithms can access the data via length-squared sampling. In this work we investigate how robust these dequantization results are. We introduce the notion of approximate length-squared sampling, where classical algorithms are only able to sample from a distribution close to the ideal distribution in total variation distance. While quantum algorithms are natively robust against small perturbations, current techniques in dequantization are not. Our main technical contribution is showing how many techniques from randomized linear algebra can be adapted to work under this weaker assumption as well. We then use these techniques to show that the recent low-rank dequantization framework by Chia, Gilyén, Li, Lin, Tang and Wang (JACM 2022) and the dequantization framework for sparse matrices by Gharibian and Le Gall (STOC 2022), which are both based on the Quantum Singular Value Transformation, can be generalized to the case of approximate length-squared sampling access to the input. We also apply these results to obtain a robust dequantization of many quantum machine learning algorithms, including quantum algorithms for recommendation systems, supervised clustering and low-rank matrix inversion.
In recent years, the utility of parameterized quantum circuits as function approximators has been widely studied. In the context of reinforcement learning, this approach has led to variational quantum algorithms such as quantum Q-learning. While these methods show promising empirical results, and can provide provable advantages for artificial problems, it remains unclear whether they can provide a provable quantum advantage over classical approaches for problems of practical relevance. A natural way to investigate this question is through the lens of dequantization: The construction of efficient classical algorithms capable of matching the performance of quantum variational methods. Building on recent kernel-based dequantization results for supervised learning, we take steps towards extending this surrogate-based dequantization program to reinforcement learning. Specifically, we study the simplified setting of reinforcement learning with a uniform generative model in which uniformly random state-action samples are available, which models the regime of sampling from a large experience replay buffer after sufficient exploration. Within this setting, we provide finite sample guarantees for classical kernelized Fitted Q-Iteration, with classical kernels designed to match the inductive bias of particular parameterized quantum circuits. Using these results, we then provide a set of sufficient conditions, on the data-encoding strategy of a parameterized quantum circuit, the corresponding classical kernel, and the problem structure, under which kernelized Fitted Q-Iteration provides a meaningful dequantization of quantum Q-learning, in this simplified setting. Apart from providing rigorous dequantization guarantees when these conditions are met, these results also motivate the use of kernelized fitted Q-iteration as a dequantization heuristic when these sufficient conditions cannot be verified.
Verifying quantum advantage for practical problems, particularly the ground state energy estimation (GSEE) problem, is one of the central challenges in quantum computing theory. For that purpose, dequantization algorithms play a central role in providing a clear theoretical framework to separate the complexity of quantum and classical algorithms. However, existing dequantized algorithms typically rely on sampling procedures, leading to prohibitively large computational overheads and hindering their practical implementation on classical computers. In this work, we propose a tensor network-based dequantization framework for GSEE that eliminates the sampling process while preserving the asymptotic complexity of prior dequantized algorithms. In our formulation, the overhead arising from sampling is replaced by the growth of the bond dimension required to represent Chebyshev vectors as tensor network states. Consequently, physical structure, such as entanglement and locality, is naturally reflected in the computational cost. By combining this approach with tensor network approximations, such as Matrix Product States (MPS), we construct a practical dequantization algorithm that is executable within realistic computational resources. Numerical simulations demonstrate that our method can efficiently construct high-degree polynomials up to
d=104 for Hamiltonians with up to
100 qubits, explicitly revealing the crossover between classically tractable and quantum advantaged regimes. These results indicate that tensor network-based dequantization provides a crucial tool toward the rigorous, quantitative verification of quantum advantage in realistic many-body systems.