Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:2303.11735 · Proceedings of the Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences

Tensor networks for quantum machine learning

Hans-Martin Rieser, Frank Köster, Arne Raulf

Published Jul 1, 2023• 42 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Once developed for quantum theory, tensor networks (TNs) have been established as a successful machine learning (ML) paradigm. Now, they have been ported back to the quantum realm in the emerging field of quantum ML to assess problems that classical computers are unable to solve efficiently. Their nature at the interface between physics and ML makes TNs easily deployable on quantum computers. In this review article, we shed light on one of the major architectures considered to be predestined for variational quantum ML. In particular, we discuss how layouts like matrix product state, projected entangled pair states, tree tensor networks and multi-scale entanglement renormalization ansatz can be mapped to a quantum computer, how they can be used for ML and data encoding and which implementation techniques improve their performance.

DOI
10.1098/rspa.2023.0218

Related papers

Quantum Phase Recognition using Quantum Tensor Networks

Shweta Sahoo, Utkarsh Azad, Singh, Harjinder

Machine learning (ML) has recently facilitated many advances in solving problems related to many-body physical systems. Given the intrinsic quantum nature of these problems, it is natural to speculate that quantum-enhanced machine learning will enable us to unveil even greater details than we currently have. With this motivation, this paper examines a quantum machine learning approach based on shallow variational ansatz inspired by tensor networks for supervised learning tasks. In particular, we first look at the standard image classification tasks using the Fashion-MNIST dataset and study the effect of repeating tensor network layers on ansatz's expressibility and performance. Finally, we use this strategy to tackle the problem of quantum phase recognition for the transverse-field Ising and Heisenberg spin models in one and two dimensions, where we were able to reach $\geq 98\%$ test-set accuracies with both multi-scale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA) and tree tensor network (TTN) inspired parametrized quantum circuits.

arXiv:2212.06207•Dec 12, 2022•0 citations

Machine Learning by Two-Dimensional Hierarchical Tensor Networks: A Quantum Information Theoretic Perspective on Deep Architectures

Ding Liu, Shi-Ju Ran, Péter Wittek +4 more

The resemblance between the methods used in studying quantum-many body physics and in machine learning has drawn considerable attention. In particular, tensor networks (TNs) and deep learning architectures bear striking similarities to the extent that TNs can be used for machine learning. Previous results used one-dimensional TNs in image recognition, showing limited scalability and a high bond dimension. In this work, we train two-dimensional hierarchical TNs to solve image recognition problems, using a training algorithm derived from the multipartite entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA). This approach overcomes scalability issues and implies novel mathematical connections among quantum many-body physics, quantum information theory, and machine learning. While keeping the TN unitary in the training phase, TN states can be defined, which optimally encodes each class of the images into a quantum many-body state. We study the quantum features of the TN states, including quantum entanglement and fidelity. We suggest these quantities could be novel properties that characterize the image classes, as well as the machine learning tasks. Our work could be further applied to identifying possible quantum properties of certain artificial intelligence methods.

•Oct 13, 2017•13 citations

Machine learning by unitary tensor network of hierarchical tree structure

Ding Liu, Shi-Ju Ran, Peter Wittek +4 more

Abstract The resemblance between the methods used in quantum-many body physics and in machine learning has drawn considerable attention. In particular, tensor networks (TNs) and deep learning architectures bear striking similarities to the extent that TNs can be used for machine learning. Previous results used one-dimensional TNs in image recognition, showing limited scalability and flexibilities. In this work, we train two-dimensional hierarchical TNs to solve image recognition problems, using a training algorithm derived from the multi-scale entanglement renormalization ansatz. This approach introduces mathematical connections among quantum many-body physics, quantum information theory, and machine learning. While keeping the TN unitary in the training phase, TN states are defined, which encode classes of images into quantum many-body states. We study the quantum features of the TN states, including quantum entanglement and fidelity. We find these quantities could be properties that characterize the image classes, as well as the machine learning tasks.

arXiv:1710.04833•New Journal of Physics•Jul 1, 2019•137 citations

Transforming two-dimensional tensor networks into quantum circuits for supervised learning

Zhihui Song, Jinchen Xu, Xin Zhou +2 more

Abstract There have been numerous quantum neural networks reported, but they struggle to match traditional neural networks in accuracy. Given the huge improvement of the neural network models’ accuracy by two-dimensional tensor network (TN) states in classical tensor network machine learning (TNML), it is promising to explore whether its application in quantum machine learning can extend the performance boundary of the models. Here, we transform two-dimensional TNs into quantum circuits for supervised learning. Specifically, we encode two-dimensional TNs into quantum circuits through rigorous mathematical proofs for constructing model ansätze, including string-bond states, entangled-plaquette states and isometric TN states. In addition, we propose adaptive data encoding methods and combine with TNs. We construct a tensor-network-inspired quantum circuit (TNQC) supervised learning framework for transferring TNML from classical to quantum, and build several novel two-dimensional TN-inspired quantum classifiers based on this framework. Finally, we propose a parallel quantum machine learning method for multi-class classification to construct 2D TNQC-based multi-class classifiers. Classical simulation results on the MNIST benchmark dataset show that our proposed models achieve the state-of-the-art accuracy performance, significantly outperforming other quantum classifiers on both binary and multi-class classification tasks, and beat simple convolutional classifiers on a fair track with identical inputs. The noise resilience of the models makes them successfully run and work in a real quantum computer.

Machine Learning Science and Technology•Mar 1, 2024•2 citations

Towards quantum machine learning with tensor networks

William J. Huggins, Piyush Patil, Bradley Mitchell +2 more

Abstract Machine learning is a promising application of quantum computing, but challenges remain for implementation today because near-term devices have a limited number of physical qubits and high error rates. Motivated by the usefulness of tensor networks for machine learning in the classical context, we propose quantum computing approaches to both discriminative and generative learning, with circuits based on tree and matrix product state tensor networks, that could already have benefits with such near-term devices. The result is a unified framework in which classical and quantum computing can benefit from the same theoretical and algorithmic developments, and the same model can be trained classically then transferred to the quantum setting for additional optimization. Tensor network circuits can also provide qubit-efficient schemes in which, depending on the architecture, the number of physical qubits required scales only logarithmically with, or independently of the input or output data sizes. We demonstrate our proposals with numerical experiments, training a discriminative model to perform handwriting recognition using a hybrid quantum-classical optimization procedure that could be carried out on quantum hardware today, and testing the noise resilience of the trained model.

arXiv:1803.11537•Quantum Science and Technology•Oct 23, 2018•366 citations

Tensor Networks for Interpretable and Efficient Quantum-Inspired Machine Learning

Shi-Ju Ran, Gang Su

It is a critical challenge to simultaneously achieve high interpretability and high efficiency with the current schemes of deep machine learning (ML). The tensor network (TN), a well-established mathematical tool originating from quantum mechanics, has shown its unique advantages in developing efficient “white-box” ML schemes. Here, we provide a brief review of the inspiring progress in TN-based ML. On the one hand, the interpretability of TN ML can be accommodated by a solid theoretical foundation based on quantum information and many-body physics. On the other hand, high efficiency can be obtained from powerful TN representations and the advanced computational techniques developed in quantum many-body physics. Keeping pace with the rapid development of quantum computers, TNs are expected to produce novel schemes runnable on quantum hardware in the direction of “quantum artificial intelligence” in the near future.

arXiv:2311.11258•Intelligent Computing•Jan 1, 2023•24 citations
Once developed for quantum theory, tensor networks (TNs) have been established as a successful machine learning (ML) paradigm. Now, they have been ported back to the quantum realm in the emerging field of quantum ML to assess problems that classical computers are unable to solve efficiently. Their nature at the interface between physics and ML makes TNs easily deployable on quantum computers. In this review article, we shed light on one of the major architectures considered to be predestined for variational quantum ML. In particular, we discuss how layouts like matrix product state, projected entangled pair states, tree tensor networks and multi-scale entanglement renormalization ansatz can be mapped to a quantum computer, how they can be used for ML and data encoding and which implementation techniques improve their performance.
Machine learning (ML) has recently facilitated many advances in solving problems related to many-body physical systems. Given the intrinsic quantum nature of these problems, it is natural to speculate that quantum-enhanced machine learning will enable us to unveil even greater details than we currently have. With this motivation, this paper examines a quantum machine learning approach based on shallow variational ansatz inspired by tensor networks for supervised learning tasks. In particular, we first look at the standard image classification tasks using the Fashion-MNIST dataset and study the effect of repeating tensor network layers on ansatz's expressibility and performance. Finally, we use this strategy to tackle the problem of quantum phase recognition for the transverse-field Ising and Heisenberg spin models in one and two dimensions, where we were able to reach ≥98%\geq 98\%≥98% test-set accuracies with both multi-scale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA) and tree tensor network (TTN) inspired parametrized quantum circuits.
The resemblance between the methods used in studying quantum-many body physics and in machine learning has drawn considerable attention. In particular, tensor networks (TNs) and deep learning architectures bear striking similarities to the extent that TNs can be used for machine learning. Previous results used one-dimensional TNs in image recognition, showing limited scalability and a high bond dimension. In this work, we train two-dimensional hierarchical TNs to solve image recognition problems, using a training algorithm derived from the multipartite entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA). This approach overcomes scalability issues and implies novel mathematical connections among quantum many-body physics, quantum information theory, and machine learning. While keeping the TN unitary in the training phase, TN states can be defined, which optimally encodes each class of the images into a quantum many-body state. We study the quantum features of the TN states, including quantum entanglement and fidelity. We suggest these quantities could be novel properties that characterize the image classes, as well as the machine learning tasks. Our work could be further applied to identifying possible quantum properties of certain artificial intelligence methods.
Abstract The resemblance between the methods used in quantum-many body physics and in machine learning has drawn considerable attention. In particular, tensor networks (TNs) and deep learning architectures bear striking similarities to the extent that TNs can be used for machine learning. Previous results used one-dimensional TNs in image recognition, showing limited scalability and flexibilities. In this work, we train two-dimensional hierarchical TNs to solve image recognition problems, using a training algorithm derived from the multi-scale entanglement renormalization ansatz. This approach introduces mathematical connections among quantum many-body physics, quantum information theory, and machine learning. While keeping the TN unitary in the training phase, TN states are defined, which encode classes of images into quantum many-body states. We study the quantum features of the TN states, including quantum entanglement and fidelity. We find these quantities could be properties that characterize the image classes, as well as the machine learning tasks.
Abstract There have been numerous quantum neural networks reported, but they struggle to match traditional neural networks in accuracy. Given the huge improvement of the neural network models’ accuracy by two-dimensional tensor network (TN) states in classical tensor network machine learning (TNML), it is promising to explore whether its application in quantum machine learning can extend the performance boundary of the models. Here, we transform two-dimensional TNs into quantum circuits for supervised learning. Specifically, we encode two-dimensional TNs into quantum circuits through rigorous mathematical proofs for constructing model ansätze, including string-bond states, entangled-plaquette states and isometric TN states. In addition, we propose adaptive data encoding methods and combine with TNs. We construct a tensor-network-inspired quantum circuit (TNQC) supervised learning framework for transferring TNML from classical to quantum, and build several novel two-dimensional TN-inspired quantum classifiers based on this framework. Finally, we propose a parallel quantum machine learning method for multi-class classification to construct 2D TNQC-based multi-class classifiers. Classical simulation results on the MNIST benchmark dataset show that our proposed models achieve the state-of-the-art accuracy performance, significantly outperforming other quantum classifiers on both binary and multi-class classification tasks, and beat simple convolutional classifiers on a fair track with identical inputs. The noise resilience of the models makes them successfully run and work in a real quantum computer.
Abstract Machine learning is a promising application of quantum computing, but challenges remain for implementation today because near-term devices have a limited number of physical qubits and high error rates. Motivated by the usefulness of tensor networks for machine learning in the classical context, we propose quantum computing approaches to both discriminative and generative learning, with circuits based on tree and matrix product state tensor networks, that could already have benefits with such near-term devices. The result is a unified framework in which classical and quantum computing can benefit from the same theoretical and algorithmic developments, and the same model can be trained classically then transferred to the quantum setting for additional optimization. Tensor network circuits can also provide qubit-efficient schemes in which, depending on the architecture, the number of physical qubits required scales only logarithmically with, or independently of the input or output data sizes. We demonstrate our proposals with numerical experiments, training a discriminative model to perform handwriting recognition using a hybrid quantum-classical optimization procedure that could be carried out on quantum hardware today, and testing the noise resilience of the trained model.
It is a critical challenge to simultaneously achieve high interpretability and high efficiency with the current schemes of deep machine learning (ML). The tensor network (TN), a well-established mathematical tool originating from quantum mechanics, has shown its unique advantages in developing efficient “white-box” ML schemes. Here, we provide a brief review of the inspiring progress in TN-based ML. On the one hand, the interpretability of TN ML can be accommodated by a solid theoretical foundation based on quantum information and many-body physics. On the other hand, high efficiency can be obtained from powerful TN representations and the advanced computational techniques developed in quantum many-body physics. Keeping pace with the rapid development of quantum computers, TNs are expected to produce novel schemes runnable on quantum hardware in the direction of “quantum artificial intelligence” in the near future.