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arXiv:1712.05304

A quantum algorithm to train neural networks using low-depth circuits

Guillaume Verdon, Michael Broughton, Jacob Biamonte

Published Dec 14, 2017• 86 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Can near-term gate model based quantum processors offer quantum advantage for practical applications in the pre-fault tolerance noise regime? A class of algorithms which have shown some promise in this regard are the so-called classical-quantum hybrid variational algorithms. Here we develop a low-depth quantum algorithm to generative neural networks using variational quantum circuits. We introduce a method which employs the quantum approximate optimization algorithm as a subroutine in order produce then sample low-energy distributions of Ising Hamiltonians. We sample these states to train neural networks and demonstrate training convergence for numerically simulated noisy circuits with depolarizing errors of rates of up to $4\%$.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1712.05304

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Can near-term gate model based quantum processors offer quantum advantage for practical applications in the pre-fault tolerance noise regime? A class of algorithms which have shown some promise in this regard are the so-called classical-quantum hybrid variational algorithms. Here we develop a low-depth quantum algorithm to generative neural networks using variational quantum circuits. We introduce a method which employs the quantum approximate optimization algorithm as a subroutine in order produce then sample low-energy distributions of Ising Hamiltonians. We sample these states to train neural networks and demonstrate training convergence for numerically simulated noisy circuits with depolarizing errors of rates of up to 4%4\%4%.
This thesis explores variational quantum algorithms in order to solve optimization combinatorial problems using a meta-learning approach. This variational algorithm sare promising due to its capability to be used in the near future in the so-called NoisyIntermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) era, in which algorithms with high tolerance to noise could perform better than its classical counterparts. In this approach, a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) optimizer tries to obtain the best set of parameters ofa quantum circuit for a given problem using the Qauntum Approximation Optimiza-tion Algorithm (QAOA), with the minimal amount of queries possible to a quantumcomputer. Thanks to the advances of parameter shift methods to compute the gradi-ents of parametrized quantum circuits, these algorithms could be even trained in realquantum computers without the need of highly demanding simulations. The resultspresented show that this approach is able to generalize to other problem instanceswhich the model has not seen before during training.
In this article, we present a hybrid quantum-classical generative adversarial network (GAN) for near-term quantum processors. The hybrid GAN comprises a variational generator and a discriminator quantum neural network, which are trained using a classic computer. The generator network is realized using angle-encoding and variational quantum circuits. The discriminator network is realized using multi-stage trainable encoding quantum circuits. A modular design approach is proposed for quantum neural networks which allows control on their depth to compromise accuracy and circuit complexity. Moreover, this modular approach makes the quantum neural networks amenable to scaling up the dimension of dataset and the number of qubits. Gradients of the loss functions are derived using the same quantum circuits used for the implementation of quantum neural networks to prevent the need for extra quantum circuits or auxiliary qubits. The quantum simulations are performed using the IBM Qiskit open-source software development kit (SDK), while the training of the hybrid quantum-classical GAN is conducted using the mini-batch stochastic gradient descent (SGD) optimization on a classic computer. The hybrid quantum-classical GAN is realized using a two-qubit system with different discriminator network structures. The best performance is achieved using a five-stage discriminator network comprising 63 quantum gates and 31 trainable parameters, with the Kullback-Leibler (KL) and Jensen-Shannon (JS) divergence scores of 0.39 and 0.52, respectively, for the similarity between the real and generated data distributions.
Quantum Neural Networks (QNNs) are a promising variational learning paradigm with applications to near-term quantum processors, however they still face some significant challenges. One such challenge is finding good parameter initialization heuristics that ensure rapid and consistent convergence to local minima of the parameterized quantum circuit landscape. In this work, we train classical neural networks to assist in the quantum learning process, also know as meta-learning, to rapidly find approximate optima in the parameter landscape for several classes of quantum variational algorithms. Specifically, we train classical recurrent neural networks to find approximately optimal parameters within a small number of queries of the cost function for the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) for MaxCut, QAOA for Sherrington-Kirkpatrick Ising model, and for a Variational Quantum Eigensolver for the Hubbard model. By initializing other optimizers at parameter values suggested by the classical neural network, we demonstrate a significant improvement in the total number of optimization iterations required to reach a given accuracy. We further demonstrate that the optimization strategies learned by the neural network generalize well across a range of problem instance sizes. This opens up the possibility of training on small, classically simulatable problem instances, in order to initialize larger, classically intractably simulatable problem instances on quantum devices, thereby significantly reducing the number of required quantum-classical optimization iterations.
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Quantum algorithms have the potential to outperform their classical counterparts in a variety of tasks. The realization of the advantage often requires the ability to load classical data efficiently into quantum states. However, the best known methods require O(2n) gates to load an exact representation of a generic data structure into an n-qubit state. This scaling can easily predominate the complexity of a quantum algorithm and, thereby, impair potential quantum advantage. Our work presents a hybrid quantum-classical algorithm for efficient, approximate quantum state loading. More precisely, we use quantum Generative Adversarial Networks (qGANs) to facilitate efficient learning and loading of generic probability distributions - implicitly given by data samples - into quantum states. Through the interplay of a quantum channel, such as a variational quantum circuit, and a classical neural network, the qGAN can learn a representation of the probability distribution underlying the data samples and load it into a quantum state. The loading requires O(poly(n)) gates and can thus enable the use of potentially advantageous quantum algorithms, such as Quantum Amplitude Estimation. We implement the qGAN distribution learning and loading method with Qiskit and test it using a quantum simulation as well as actual quantum processors provided by the IBM Q Experience. Furthermore, we employ quantum simulation to demonstrate the use of the trained quantum channel in a quantum finance application.