Abstract Ensemble methods in machine learning aim to improve prediction accuracy by combining multiple models. This is achieved by ensuring diversity among predictors to capture different data aspects. Homogeneous ensembles use identical models, achieving diversity through different data subsets, and weighted-average ensembles assign higher influence to more accurate models through a weight learning procedure. We propose a method to achieve a weighted homogeneous quantum ensemble using quantum classifiers with indexing registers for data encoding. This approach leverages instance-based quantum classifiers, enabling feature and training point subsampling through superposition and controlled unitaries, and allowing for a quantum-parallel execution of diverse internal classifiers with different data compositions in superposition. The method integrates a learning process involving circuit execution and classical weight optimization, for a trained ensemble execution with weights encoded in the circuit at test-time. Empirical evaluation demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, offering insights into its performance.
Abstract Ensemble methods in machine learning aim to improve prediction accuracy by combining multiple models. This is achieved by ensuring diversity among predictors to capture different data aspects. Homogeneous ensembles use identical models, achieving diversity through different data subsets, and weighted-average ensembles assign higher influence to more accurate models through a weight learning procedure. We propose a method to achieve a weighted homogeneous quantum ensemble using quantum classifiers with indexing registers for data encoding. This approach leverages instance-based quantum classifiers, enabling feature and training point subsampling through superposition and controlled unitaries, and allowing for a quantum-parallel execution of diverse internal classifiers with different data compositions in superposition. The method integrates a learning process involving circuit execution and classical weight optimization, for a trained ensemble execution with weights encoded in the circuit at test-time. Empirical evaluation demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, offering insights into its performance.
In the current era, known as Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ), encoding large amounts of data in the quantum devices is challenging and the impact of noise significantly affects the quality of the obtained results. A viable approach for the execution of quantum classification algorithms is the introduction of a well-known machine learning paradigm, namely, the ensemble methods. Indeed, the ensembles combine multiple internal classifiers, which are characterized by compact sizes due to the smaller data subsets used for training, to achieve more accurate and robust prediction performance. In this way, it is possible to reduce the qubit requirements with respect to a single larger classifier while achieving comparable or improved performance. In this work, we present an implementation and an extensive empirical evaluation of ensembles of quantum instance-based classifiers for binary classification, with the purpose of providing insights into their effectiveness, limitations, and potential for enhancing the performance of basic quantum models. In particular, three classical ensemble methods and three quantum instance-based classifiers have been taken into account here. Hence, the scheme that has been implemented (in Python) has a hybrid nature. The results (obtained on real-world datasets) have shown an accuracy advantage for the ensemble techniques with respect to the single quantum classifiers, and also an improvement in robustness. In fact, ensembles have proven effective not only in mitigating unsuitable data normalizations but also in reducing the impact of noise on quantum classifiers, enhancing their stability.
Abstract A powerful way to improve performance in machine learning is to construct an ensemble that combines the predictions of multiple models. Ensemble methods are often much more accurate and have a lower variance than the individual classifiers that make them up, but have high requirements in terms of memory and computational time. In fact, a large number of alternative algorithms is usually adopted, each requiring to query all available data. We propose a new quantum algorithm that exploits quantum superposition, entanglement and interference to build an ensemble of classification models. Thanks to the generation of the several quantum trajectories in superposition, we obtain B transformations of the quantum state which encodes the training set in only log ( B ) operations. This implies an exponential growth of the ensemble size while increasing linearly the depth of the correspondent circuit. Furthermore, when considering the overall cost of the algorithm, we show that the training of a single weak classifier impacts additively to the overall time complexity rather than multiplicatively, as it usually happens in classical ensemble methods. We also present small-scale experiments on real-world datasets, defining a quantum version of the cosine classifier and using the IBM qiskit environment to show how the algorithms work.
A powerful way to improve performance in machine learning is to construct an ensemble that combines the predictions of multiple models. Ensemble methods are often much more accurate and lower variance than the individual classifiers that make them up but have high requirements in terms of memory and computational time. In fact, a large number of alternative algorithms is usually adopted, each requiring to query all available data. We propose a new quantum algorithm that exploits quantum superposition, entanglement and interference to build an ensemble of classification models. Thanks to the generation of the several quantum trajectories in superposition, we obtain B transformations of the quantum state which encodes the training set in only log(B) operations. This implies exponential growth of the ensemble size while increasing linearly the depth of the correspondent circuit. Furthermore, when considering the overall cost of the algorithm, we show that the training of a single weak classifier impacts additively the overall time complexity rather than multiplicatively, as it usually happens in classical ensemble methods. We also present small-scale experiments on real-world datasets, defining a quantum version of the cosine classifier and using the IBM qiskit environment to show how the algorithms work.
ABSTRACT Ensemble learning plays a central role in improving the generalization of machine learning models, yet its full potential remains underexplored in the quantum domain. In this work, we propose a Quantum Ensemble Learning (QEL) algorithm that leverages the parallelism of quantum computing to construct diverse classifiers in a shallow‐circuit ensemble. The method uses a control‐qubit‐based sampling strategy to create superpositions of training subsamples, enabling simultaneous evaluation of multiple weak learners. The algorithm proceeds through four stages: quantum state preparation, superposition‐based sampling, learning via quantum interference, and final measurement. Our framework is flexible and allows different quantum classifiers to be used as base learners. We demonstrate this by implementing a robust QSVM‐based ensemble with quantum feature extraction using PauliFeatureMaps. Unlike classical methods, this technique adds classifiers to time complexity additively rather than multiplicatively due to the parallelism of quantum computing. To demonstrate the workflow of the proposed algorithm, we include a step‐by‐step example using the XOR problem. Simulation results further validate the effectiveness of the QEL framework—enhanced by the integration of a Quantum Support Vector Machine (QSVM) classifier with quantum feature extraction—showing improved classification accuracy compared to existing algorithms across several UCI benchmark datasets using IBM Qiskit.
Quantum annealing has been widely used to optimize machine learning such as ensemble classifiers. This ensemble classifier enhances classification performance through the combination of multiple accurate and diverse base classifiers. It benefits from the “perturb and combine” strategy which involves using the random subspace as the prevalent approach to perturb input data. There are several methods to generate a random subspace which include bagging, boosting, clustering, and, more recently, clustering balancing. The main contribution of this research was to improve the accuracy of the ensemble classifier using the hybrid quantum annealing method. The process involved making larger, stronger, and more balanced clusters through 1) the modification of the range of values from K in incremental clustering, 2) the adjustment of the clusters to be stronger and more balanced, and 3) the optimization of pure-class clusters using quantum annealing. The proposed method was tested and evaluated on 10 benchmark datasets from the UCI repository and the results were compared with current approaches. The results showed that the proposed method has better accuracy than the others due to the larger, stronger, and more balanced clusters generated as well as the better trade-off between accuracy and diversity.
Quantum machine learning seeks to exploit the underlying nature of a quantum computer to enhance machine learning techniques. A particular framework uses the quantum property of superposition to store sets of parameters, thereby creating an ensemble of quantum classifiers that may be computed in parallel. The idea stems from classical ensemble methods where one attempts to build a stronger model by averaging the results from many different models. In this work, we demonstrate that a specific implementation of the quantum ensemble of quantum classifiers, called the accuracy-weighted quantum ensemble, can be fully dequantised. On the other hand, the general quantum ensemble framework is shown to contain the well-known Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm that notably provides a quantum speedup and creates the potential for a useful quantum ensemble to harness this computational advantage.