A Laplacian-based Quantum Graph Neural Network for Semi-Supervised Learning
Hamed Gholipour, Farid Bozorgnia, Kailash Hambarde, Hamzeh Mohammadigheymasi, Javier Mancilla, André Sequeira, João C. Neves, Hugo Pedro Martins Carriço Proença
Laplacian learning method is a well-established technique in classical graph-based semi-supervised learning, but its potential in the quantum domain remains largely unexplored. This study investigates the performance of the Laplacian-based Quantum Semi-Supervised Learning (QSSL) method across four benchmark datasets -- Iris, Wine, Breast Cancer Wisconsin, and Heart Disease. Further analysis explores the impact of increasing Qubit counts, revealing that adding more Qubits to a quantum system doesn't always improve performance. The effectiveness of additional Qubits depends on the quantum algorithm and how well it matches the dataset. Additionally, we examine the effects of varying entangling layers on entanglement entropy and test accuracy. The performance of Laplacian learning is highly dependent on the number of entangling layers, with optimal configurations varying across different datasets. Typically, moderate levels of entanglement offer the best balance between model complexity and generalization capabilities. These observations highlight the crucial need for precise hyperparameter tuning tailored to each dataset to achieve optimal performance in Laplacian learning methods.
Laplacian learning method is a well-established technique in classical graph-based semi-supervised learning, but its potential in the quantum domain remains largely unexplored. This study investigates the performance of the Laplacian-based Quantum Semi-Supervised Learning (QSSL) method across four benchmark datasets -- Iris, Wine, Breast Cancer Wisconsin, and Heart Disease. Further analysis explores the impact of increasing Qubit counts, revealing that adding more Qubits to a quantum system doesn't always improve performance. The effectiveness of additional Qubits depends on the quantum algorithm and how well it matches the dataset. Additionally, we examine the effects of varying entangling layers on entanglement entropy and test accuracy. The performance of Laplacian learning is highly dependent on the number of entangling layers, with optimal configurations varying across different datasets. Typically, moderate levels of entanglement offer the best balance between model complexity and generalization capabilities. These observations highlight the crucial need for precise hyperparameter tuning tailored to each dataset to achieve optimal performance in Laplacian learning methods.
Abstract The Laplacian learning method has proven effective in classical graph-based semi-supervised learning, yet its quantum counterpart remains underexplored. This study systematically evaluates the Laplacian-based quantum semi-supervised learning (QSSL) approach across four benchmark datasets—Iris, Wine, Breast Cancer Wisconsin, and Heart Disease. By experimenting with varying qubit counts and entangling layers, we demonstrate that increased quantum resources do not necessarily lead to improved performance. Our findings reveal that the effectiveness of the method is highly sensitive to dataset characteristics, as well as the number of entangling layers. Optimal configurations, generally featuring moderate entanglement, strike a balance between model complexity and generalization. These results emphasize the importance of dataset-specific hyperparameter tuning in quantum semi-supervised learning frameworks.
This paper develops a hybrid quantum approach for graph-based semi-supervised learning to enhance performance in scenarios where labeled data is scarce. We introduce two enhanced quantum models, the Improved Laplacian Quantum Semi-Supervised Learning (ILQSSL) and the Improved Poisson Quantum Semi-Supervised Learning (IPQSSL), that incorporate advanced label propagation strategies within variational quantum circuits. These models utilize QR decomposition to embed graph structure directly into quantum states, thereby enabling more effective learning in low-label settings. We validate our methods across four benchmark datasets like Iris, Wine, Heart Disease, and German Credit Card -- and show that both ILQSSL and IPQSSL consistently outperform leading classical semi-supervised learning algorithms, particularly under limited supervision. Beyond standard performance metrics, we examine the effect of circuit depth and qubit count on learning quality by analyzing entanglement entropy and Randomized Benchmarking (RB). Our results suggest that while some level of entanglement improves the model's ability to generalize, increased circuit complexity may introduce noise that undermines performance on current quantum hardware. Overall, the study highlights the potential of quantum-enhanced models for semi-supervised learning, offering practical insights into how quantum circuits can be designed to balance expressivity and stability. These findings support the role of quantum machine learning in advancing data-efficient classification, especially in applications constrained by label availability and hardware limitations.
Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) achieve state-of-the-art performance on graph-structured data, but training and inference on large graphs are often bottlenecked by memory constraints and sparse linear-algebra workloads. Quantum computing offers an alternative set of primitives that may improve scalability for graph learning. Building on the quantum graph neural network (QGNN) framework of Liao \textit{et al.}, this work implements two representative architectures --- the Simplified Graph Convolution (SGC) and Linear Graph Convolution (LGC) models --- and evaluates them on open benchmark graph datasets and semi-supervised learning tasks using quantum simulation. We compare predictive performance and optimization behavior against classical baselines, showing that the quantum models achieve competitive performance with fewer parameters. Finally, we present a cost gradient analysis that identifies the tasks for which the models showcased are trainable. This is followed by a classical simulability study to find regimes in which the proposed circuits remain robust during training.
Quantum-assisted models can surpass classical counterparts in specific domains by leveraging quantum superposition entanglement for more efficient data representation. This study investigates a Quantum neural network framework executed on various Quantum simulators, including ionq, Cirq, Pennylane and Quantinnum backends. The iris, wine, Indian liver patient and rain datasets are employed as benchmarking datasets to assess the efficacy of quantum-based classification models. The QNN utilises parameterized quantum circuits and quantum feature maps to learn complex patterns in data, optimizing classification decision boundaries through quantum optimization techniques. The study evaluates QNN performance across different quantum hardware platforms, assessing key metrics such as accuracy, recall, F1 score, and precision. Preliminary results indicate that QNN-based classification effectively captures feature dependencies through quantum correlations, offering competitive performance in data classification tasks. These findings contribute to the broader exploration of quantum-enhanced classification and the potential of quantum devices in real-world data analysis.
The data generated from non-Euclidean domains and its graphical representation (with complex-relationship object interdependence) applications has observed an exponential growth. The sophistication of graph data has posed consequential obstacles to the existing machine learning algorithms. In this study, we have considered a revamped version of a semi-supervised learning algorithm for graph-structured data to address the issue of expanding deep learning approaches to represent the graph data. Additionally, the quantum information theory has been applied through Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) to generate Riemannian metrics in closed-form of several graph layers. In further, to pre-process the adjacency matrix of graphs, a new formulation is established to incorporate high order proximities. The proposed scheme has shown outstanding improvements to overcome the deficiencies in Graph Convolutional Network (GCN), particularly, the information loss and imprecise information representation with acceptable computational overhead. Moreover, the proposed Quantum Graph Convolutional Network (QGCN) has significantly strengthened the GCN on semi-supervised node classification tasks. In parallel, it expands the generalization process with a significant difference by making small random perturbations of the graph during the training process. The evaluation results are provided on three benchmark datasets, including Citeseer, Cora, and PubMed, that distinctly delineate the superiority of the proposed model in terms of computational accuracy against state-of-the-art GCN and three other methods based on the same algorithms in the existing literature.
Abstract Quantum machine learning, focusing on quantum neural networks (QNNs), remains a vastly uncharted field of study. Current QNN models primarily employ variational circuits on an ansatz or a quantum feature map, often requiring multiple entanglement layers. This methodology not only increases the computational cost of the circuit beyond what is practical on near-term quantum devices but also misleadingly labels these models as neural networks, given their divergence from the structure of a typical feed-forward neural network (FFNN). Moreover, the circuit depth and qubit needs of these models scale poorly with the number of data features, resulting in an efficiency challenge for real-world machine learning tasks. We introduce a bona fide QNN model, which seamlessly aligns with the versatility of a traditional FFNN in terms of its adaptable intermediate layers and nodes, absent from intermediate measurements such that our entire model is coherent. This model stands out with its reduced circuit depth and number of requisite CNOT gates, achieving a more than 50% reduction in both compared to prevailing QNN models. Furthermore, the qubit count in our model remains unaffected by the data’s feature quantity. We test our proposed model on various benchmarking datasets such as the breast cancer diagnostic (Wisconsin) and credit card fraud detection datasets. Our model achieved an accuracy of 91% on the breast cancer dataset and 85% on the credit card fraud detection dataset, outperforming existing QNN methods by 5–10% while requiring approximately 50% fewer quantum resources. These results showcase the advantageous efficacy of our approach, paving the way for the application of quantum neural networks to relevant real-world machine learning problems.