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arXiv:1902.10445 · Nature Communications

Training deep quantum neural networks

Kerstin Beer, Dmytro Bondarenko, Terry Farrelly, Tobias J. Osborne, Robert Salzmann, Daniel Scheiermann, Ramona Wolf

Published Feb 10, 2020• 726 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Neural networks enjoy widespread success in both research and industry and, with the advent of quantum technology, it is a crucial challenge to design quantum neural networks for fully quantum learning tasks. Here we propose a truly quantum analogue of classical neurons, which form quantum feedforward neural networks capable of universal quantum computation. We describe the efficient training of these networks using the fidelity as a cost function, providing both classical and efficient quantum implementations. Our method allows for fast optimisation with reduced memory requirements: the number of qudits required scales with only the width, allowing deep-network optimisation. We benchmark our proposal for the quantum task of learning an unknown unitary and find remarkable generalisation behaviour and a striking robustness to noisy training data.

DOI
10.1038/s41467-020-14454-2

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Neural networks enjoy widespread success in both research and industry and, with the advent of quantum technology, it is a crucial challenge to design quantum neural networks for fully quantum learning tasks. Here we propose a truly quantum analogue of classical neurons, which form quantum feedforward neural networks capable of universal quantum computation. We describe the efficient training of these networks using the fidelity as a cost function, providing both classical and efficient quantum implementations. Our method allows for fast optimisation with reduced memory requirements: the number of qudits required scales with only the width, allowing deep-network optimisation. We benchmark our proposal for the quantum task of learning an unknown unitary and find remarkable generalisation behaviour and a striking robustness to noisy training data.
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Quantum computing is one of the most exciting research areas of the last decades. At the same time, methods of machine learning have started to dominate science, industry and our everyday life. In this thesis we combine these two essential research topics of the 21st century and introduce dissipative quantum neural networks (DQNNs), which are designed for fully quantum learning tasks, are capable of universal quantum computation and have low memory requirements while training. We start the discussion of this interdisciplinary topic by introducing artificial neural networks, which are a very common tool in classical machine learning. Next, we give an overview on quantum information. Here we focus on quantum algorithms and circuits, which are used to implement quantum neural networks. Moreover, we explain the opportunities and challenges arising with today's quantum computers. The discussion of the architecture and training algorithm of the DQNNs forms the core of this work. These networks are optimised with training data pairs in form of input and desired output states and therefore can be used for characterising unknown or untrusted quantum devices. We not only demonstrate the generalisation behaviour of these quantum neural networks using classical simulations, but also implement them successfully on actual quantum computers. To understand the ultimate limits for such quantum machine learning methods, we discuss the quantum no free lunch theorem, which describes a bound on the probability that a quantum device, which can be modelled as a unitary process and is optimised with quantum examples, gives an incorrect output for a random input. This gives us a tool to review the learning behaviour of quantum neural networks in general and the DQNNs in particular. Moreover we expand the area of applications of DQNNs in two directions. In the first case, we include additional information beyond just the training data pairs: since quantum devices are always structured, the resulting data is always structured as well. We modify the DQNN's training algorithm such that knowledge about the graph-structure of the training data pairs is included in the training process and show that this can lead to better generalisation behaviour. Both the original DQNN and the DQNN including graph structure are trained with data pairs in order to characterise an underlying relation. However, in the second extension of the algorithm we aim to learn characteristics of a set of quantum states in order to extend it to quantum states which have similar properties. Therefore we build a generative adversarial model where two DQNNs, called the generator and discriminator, are trained in a competitive way. Overall, we observe that DQNNs can not only be trained efficiently but also, similar to their classical counterparts, modified to suit different applications.
Abstract We propose a quantum generalisation of a classical neural network. The classical neurons are firstly rendered reversible by adding ancillary bits. Then they are generalised to being quantum reversible, i.e., unitary (the classical networks we generalise are called feedforward, and have step-function activation functions). The quantum network can be trained efficiently using gradient descent on a cost function to perform quantum generalisations of classical tasks. We demonstrate numerically that it can: (i) compress quantum states onto a minimal number of qubits, creating a quantum autoencoder, and (ii) discover quantum communication protocols such as teleportation. Our general recipe is theoretical and implementation-independent. The quantum neuron module can naturally be implemented photonically.
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Quantum machine learning has the potential for broad industrial applications, and the development of quantum algorithms for improving the performance of neural networks is of particular interest given the central role they play in machine learning today. We present quantum algorithms for training and evaluating feedforward neural networks based on the canonical classical feedforward and backpropagation algorithms. Our algorithms rely on an efficient quantum subroutine for approximating inner products between vectors in a robust way, and on implicitly storing intermediate values in quantum random access memory for fast retrieval at later stages. The running times of our algorithms can be quadratically faster in the size of the network than their standard classical counterparts since they depend linearly on the number of neurons in the network, and not on the number of connections between neurons. Furthermore, networks trained by our quantum algorithm may have an intrinsic resilience to overfitting, as the algorithm naturally mimics the effects of classical techniques used to regularize networks. Our algorithms can also be used as the basis for new quantum-inspired classical algorithms with the same dependence on the network dimensions as their quantum counterparts but with quadratic overhead in other parameters that makes them relatively impractical.