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arXiv:2001.10477 · Physical Review A

Statistical limits of supervised quantum learning

Carlo Ciliberto, Andrea Rocchetto, Alessandro Rudi, Leonard Wossnig

Published Oct 28, 2020• 9 citations
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Abstract

Within the framework of statistical learning theory it is possible to bound the minimum number of samples required by a learner to reach a target accuracy. We show that if the bound on the accuracy is taken into account, quantum machine learning algorithms for supervised learning---for which statistical guarantees are available---cannot achieve polylogarithmic runtimes in the input dimension. We conclude that, when no further assumptions on the problem are made, quantum machine learning algorithms for supervised learning can have at most polynomial speedups over efficient classical algorithms, even in cases where quantum access to the data is naturally available.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.102.042414

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Within the framework of statistical learning theory it is possible to bound the minimum number of samples required by a learner to reach a target accuracy. We show that if the bound on the accuracy is taken into account, quantum machine learning algorithms for supervised learning---for which statistical guarantees are available---cannot achieve polylogarithmic runtimes in the input dimension. We conclude that, when no further assumptions on the problem are made, quantum machine learning algorithms for supervised learning can have at most polynomial speedups over efficient classical algorithms, even in cases where quantum access to the data is naturally available.
Within the framework of statistical learning theory it is possible to bound the minimum number of samples required by a learner to reach a target accuracy. We show that if the bound on the accuracy is taken into account, quantum machine learning algorithms -- for which statistical guarantees are available -- cannot achieve polylogarithmic runtimes in the input dimension. This calls for a careful revaluation of quantum speedups for learning problems, even in cases where quantum access to the data is naturally available.
Machine learning is widely regarded as a promising application in which quantum computing could offer a computational advantage. However, general quantum machine learning models with provable guarantees on performance, trainability, and efficient inference remain limited. In this work, we introduce quantum Hamiltonian embeddings, a supervised learning framework in which a classical training dataset is encoded into a single effective, parameterized Hamiltonian. Training optimizes the parameters of this data-dependent Hamiltonian, whose approximate ground state defines the classification rule. Once the ground state has been approximated using a quantum algorithm, inference can be performed either classically using a classical representation of the learned state, or with a quantum representation of the state. We establish efficient methods for gradient estimation and prove favorable generalization guarantees. Furthermore, under standard cryptographic assumptions, we show that Hamiltonian embeddings can realize hypothesis functions beyond the reach of efficient classical algorithms. We then demonstrate the framework at scale on IBM Heron processors using a standard benchmark dataset. Together, these results establish Hamiltonian embeddings as a new framework for quantum machine learning, combining theoretical guarantees with a path for experimental investigations at scale on quantum hardware.
In this dissertation, we study the intersection of quantum computing and supervised machine learning algorithms, which means that we investigate quantum algorithms for supervised machine learning that operate on classical data. This area of research falls under the umbrella of quantum machine learning, a research area of computer science which has recently received wide attention. In particular, we investigate to what extent quantum computers can be used to accelerate supervised machine learning algorithms. The aim of this is to develop a clear understanding of the promises and limitations of the current state of the art of quantum algorithms for supervised machine learning, but also to define directions for future research in this exciting field. We start by looking at supervised quantum machine learning (QML) algorithms through the lens of statistical learning theory. In this framework, we derive novel bounds on the computational complexities of a large set of supervised QML algorithms under the requirement of optimal learning rates. Next, we give a new bound for Hamiltonian simulation of dense Hamiltonians, a major subroutine of most known supervised QML algorithms, and then derive a classical algorithm with nearly the same complexity. We then draw the parallels to recent "quantum-inspired" results, and will explain the implications of these results for quantum machine learning applications. Looking for areas which might bear larger advantages for QML algorithms, we finally propose a novel algorithm for Quantum Boltzmann machines, and argue that quantum algorithms for quantum data are one of the most promising applications for QML with potentially exponential advantage over classical approaches.
Quantum machine learning promises to efficiently solve important problems. There are two persistent challenges in classical machine learning: the lack of labeled data, and the limit of computational power. We propose a novel framework that resolves both issues: quantum semi-supervised learning. Moreover, we provide a protocol in systematically designing quantum machine learning algorithms with quantum supremacy, which can be extended beyond quantum semi-supervised learning. In the meantime, we show that naive quantum matrix product estimation algorithm outperforms the best known classical matrix multiplication algorithm. We showcase two concrete quantum semi-supervised learning algorithms: a quantum self-training algorithm named the propagating nearest-neighbor classifier, and the quantum semi-supervised K-means clustering algorithm. By doing time complexity analysis, we conclude that they indeed possess quantum supremacy.
Machine-learning tasks frequently involve problems of manipulating and classifying large numbers of vectors in high-dimensional spaces. Classical algorithms for solving such problems typically take time polynomial in the number of vectors and the dimension of the space. Quantum computers are good at manipulating high-dimensional vectors in large tensor product spaces. This paper provides supervised and unsupervised quantum machine learning algorithms for cluster assignment and cluster finding. Quantum machine learning can take time logarithmic in both the number of vectors and their dimension, an exponential speed-up over classical algorithms.
An overarching milestone of quantum machine learning (QML) is to demonstrate the advantage of QML over all possible classical learning methods in accelerating a common type of learning task, as represented by supervised learning from classical data. However, the provable advantages of QML in supervised learning have been known so far only for the learning tasks designed for using the advantage of specific quantum algorithms, i.e., Shor’s algorithms. Here, we explicitly construct an unprecedentedly broader family of supervised learning tasks with classical data to offer the provable advantage of QML based on general quantum computational advantages, progressing beyond Shor’s algorithms. Our learning task is feasibly achievable by executing a general class of functions that can be computed efficiently in polynomial time for a large fraction of inputs by arbitrary quantum algorithms, but not by any classical algorithm. We prove the hardness of achieving this learning task for any possible polynomial-time classical learning method. We also clarify protocols for preparing the classical data to demonstrate this learning task in experiments. These results provide a way to exploit a variety of quantum advantages in computing functions for the realization of provably advantageous QML.