Mission critical (MC) applications such as defense operations, energy management, cybersecurity, and aerospace control require reliable, deterministic, and low-latency decision making under uncertainty. Although the classical Artificial Intelligence (AI) approaches are effective, they often struggle to meet the stringent constraints of robustness, timing, explainability, and safety in the MC domains. Quantum Artificial Intelligence (QAI), the fusion of artificial intelligence and quantum computing (QC), can potentially provide transformative solutions to the challenges faced by classical ML models. QAI is a broader umbrella than Quantum Machine Learning (QML) and additionally includes quantum optimization, search, and reasoning; we use QAI throughout the paper for the field at large, and QML only for learning-specific subroutines. The principal contributions of this work are: (i) a systematic survey of QAI methods analyzed through the lens of MC requirements like certification, robustness, and timing; (ii) a conceptual quantum cloud resource management and scheduling framework with deployment assumptions, complexity analysis, and failure-mode discussion; and (iii) an identification of the gaps between current QAI capabilities and MC systems requirements. We also propose a conceptual model for management of quantum resources and scheduling of applications driven by timeliness constraints. We discuss multiple challenges, including trainability limits, data access, and loading bottlenecks, verification of quantum components, and adversarial QAI. Finally, we outline future research directions toward achieving interpretable, scalable, and hardware-feasible QAI models for MC application deployment.
Mission critical (MC) applications such as defense operations, energy management, cybersecurity, and aerospace control require reliable, deterministic, and low-latency decision making under uncertainty. Although the classical Artificial Intelligence (AI) approaches are effective, they often struggle to meet the stringent constraints of robustness, timing, explainability, and safety in the MC domains. Quantum Artificial Intelligence (QAI), the fusion of artificial intelligence and quantum computing (QC), can potentially provide transformative solutions to the challenges faced by classical ML models. QAI is a broader umbrella than Quantum Machine Learning (QML) and additionally includes quantum optimization, search, and reasoning; we use QAI throughout the paper for the field at large, and QML only for learning-specific subroutines. The principal contributions of this work are: (i) a systematic survey of QAI methods analyzed through the lens of MC requirements like certification, robustness, and timing; (ii) a conceptual quantum cloud resource management and scheduling framework with deployment assumptions, complexity analysis, and failure-mode discussion; and (iii) an identification of the gaps between current QAI capabilities and MC systems requirements. We also propose a conceptual model for management of quantum resources and scheduling of applications driven by timeliness constraints. We discuss multiple challenges, including trainability limits, data access, and loading bottlenecks, verification of quantum components, and adversarial QAI. Finally, we outline future research directions toward achieving interpretable, scalable, and hardware-feasible QAI models for MC application deployment.
Critical infrastructures (CI)-including power grids, financial systems, communication networks, and transportation networks-are essential to societal stability and economic security. As these systems grow increasingly complex and interconnected, they face mounting challenges in scalability, robustness, real-time decision-making, and data privacy. While classical artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) techniques have been applied to enhance CI monitoring, optimization, and control, they are often constrained by data heterogeneity, centralized architectures, and limited adaptability. Quantum computing (QC), known for its potential to solve certain computational problems exponentially faster than classical methods, has opened new possibilities in this domain. Quantum artificial intelligence (QAI), which combines quantum computing with AI techniques, offers transformative opportunities, particularly through paradigms such as federated quantum machine learning (FedQML) and quantum reinforcement learning (QRL). These approaches promise privacy-preserving distributed intelligence and dynamic control across CI systems. In this article, we survey recent developments in QAI and explore their applications in critical infrastructure domains. We also highlight key challenges and outline a forward-looking roadmap toward resilient, secure, and quantum-enhanced infrastructure systems.
Quantum computing and artificial intelligence (AI) are two rapidly evolving technologies poised to redefine the future of computation and decision-making.The two fields unite under the name Quantum Artificial Intelligence (QAI) or Quantum Intelligence, which enables a transformative approach to problem-solving through the fusion of AI mental functions with quantum computing capabilities.This paper provides a comprehensive review of the current landscape, highlighting the opportunities and challenges in integrating quantum computing with AI systems.The research investigates current developments in quantum machine learning, quantum neural networks, and hybrid quantum-classical systems, which show promise for achieving rapid performance improvements and enhanced scalability and data processing capabilities.At the same time, it identifies critical barriers, including hardware limitations, algorithmic complexity, data encoding issues, and the lack of standardization in frameworks.The review further explores future directions, including the role of explainable AI, error correction, and interdisciplinary research in achieving practical quantum-AI synergy.By analyzing both the technological potential and the practical constraints, this paper aims to outline a roadmap for advancing quantum intelligence as a transformative force in next-generation computational paradigms.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to drive innovation across industries, but faces mounting challenges in computational scalability, optimization, and interpretability as models grow increasingly complex. Quantum Artificial Intelligence (QAI) offers a promising path forward by leveraging quantum phenomena such as superposition and entanglement to augment learning processes beyond classical limits. This review synthesizes the recent progress in QAI, emphasizing a comparative perspective framed through its advantages and limitations. It examines how hybrid quantum-classical architectures and variational models seek to address constraints in the Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) era, and how applications in healthcare, finance, and cybersecurity illustrate both the potential and the barriers of the field. While several studies have broadly mapped the growth of QAI in algorithms and applications, this paper adopts a different perspective: emphasizing comparative analysis through advantages and limitations. The focus is on where QAI offers unique opportunities, where it encounters obstacles distinct from classical AI and quantum computing, and what research directions may transform these challenges into breakthroughs. By situating QAI within this comparative framework, the paper provides a realistic yet forward-looking assessment of its trajectory as a paradigm poised to reshape computational intelligence.
Quantum Artificial Intelligence (QAI) combines quantum computing with artificial intelligence (AI) to surpass the traditional barriers of classical computing systems, such as their inability to solve large-scale optimization problems or simulate complex quantum systems, which require exponentially increasing computational resources. Quantum computing, on the other hand, makes use of quantum mechanical phenomena of superposition, entanglement, and interference to process millions of data points in parallel, avoiding the exponential computation needed in many complex problems. QAI combines principles of quantum computing with AI techniques, thereby accelerating model learning. Some of the most notable applications include drug discovery in terms of exact predictions of molecular interactions, due to the enhancement of quantum simulations. There are cryptographic applications where QAI challenges classical encryption but also contains more advanced, non-breakable quantum cryptographic methods. In the same way as general advances in the field of data analysis and optimization, these domains would change: financial modeling, cybersecurity, and climate science. The biggest challenges remaining in scaling quantum hardware are noise and decoherence. Solutions will require major advances in quantum error correction, along with hybrid quantum-classical systems integrating the strengths of each. At this point, added to the list of critical concerns in the development of QAI are ethical considerations such as data privacy, algorithmic bias, and transparency. But all this notwithstanding, QAI has the transformative potential to solve problems that classical AI was unable to solve and drive innovation in domains ranging from healthcare and environmental science to cryptography and beyond. Unlocking its full capabilities and overcoming the resultant technical and ethical challenges is by way of further research and collaboration.
Quantum Artificial Intelligence (QAI) has emerged at the nexus of quantum computing and AI, promising to redefine computational frontiers. This survey critically synthesizes the state-of-the- art through 2024, elucidating the profound bidirectional synergy between these fields. We analyze how classical machine learning is accelerating quantum hardware control, circuit optimization, and error correction. Conversely, we assess the potential quantum advantage of algorithms, including variational and kernel-based methods, across domains such as drug discovery, financial modeling, and cybersecurity. Our analysis reveals a critical trade-of between the utility of near-term Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices and the long-term promise of fault-tolerant architectures. We identify fundamental obstacles to QAI’s advancement, including hardware decoherence, algorithmic barren plateaus, and data-encoding bottlenecks. While QAI’s potential is transformative, achieving practical quantum advantage requires a concerted effort to overcome these core challenges at the hardware-software interface. This work provides a roadmap for navigating the current landscape and prioritizing future research in this rapidly evolving discipline. • We introduce a bi-directional Quantum-AI framework, AI-for-QC and QC-for-AI, and provide a practical roadmap for integrating both paradigms across the full stack. • We quantify AI-enabled gains: calibration time drops from 8 hours to 2 hours, circuit depth falls by up to 42%, and ML decoders cut logical error rates by about half. • We synthesize comparative guidance on VQAs, quantum kernels, and hybrid/quantum Transformers, clarifying trainability limits and criteria for credible quantum advantage. • We deliver a clinically grounded playbook for radiology, covering small-data use cases, plug-in hybrid modules, OOD validation, fairness assessments, and TRIPOD/CONSORT-AI reporting.
The field of Quantum Artificial Intelligence (Quantum AI) has emerged as a promising interdisciplinary research area where the computational power of quantum computing is merged with the learning and decision-making power of AI. The application of quantum principles such as superposition, entanglement and quantum interference to machine learning algorithms has created new possibilities for solving problems that may be difficult to solve by classical machines. In the last few years, advances in Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices have helped to speed advances in Quantum Machine Learning (QML) algorithms, Quantum Neural Networks (QNNs), Quantum Support Vector Machines (QSVMs), Quantum Convolutional Neural Networks (QCNNs) and hybrid learning algorithms. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the research in the field of Quantum AI from 2020 to 2026, covering the key concepts, novel architectures, algorithmic advancements, and practical applications. A critical assessment of the application of Quantum AI in fields such as healthcare, finance, cybersecurity, scientific computing and optimization problems is provided, and the benefits of quantum-enhanced learning models are discussed. In addition, common difficulties such as quantum hardware limitations, sensitivity to noise, encoding of data, scalability constraints and a lack of speed in training variational quantum circuits are discussed. The review also covers new avenues of research, including trustworthy quantum machine learning, explainable Quantum AI, quantum federated learning, and fault-tolerant quantum computing. The results suggest while practical large-scale deployment is currently limited by existing hardware capabilities, hybrid quantum-classical systems have great potential to rapidly move intelligent data processing and develop next-generation AI systems.