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arXiv:2512.12068 · International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems (ASPLOS)

TreeVQA: A Tree-Structured Execution Framework for Shot Reduction in Variational Quantum Algorithms

Yuewen Hou, Dhanvi Bharadwaj, Gokul Subramanian Ravi

quant-phcs.ARcs.DCcs.ETSubmitted Dec 12, 2025• Announced Dec 16, 2025• 0 citations
v1 · Dec 12, 2025v2 · Dec 19, 2025
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Abstract

Variational Quantum Algorithms (VQAs) are promising for near- and intermediate-term quantum computing, but their execution cost is substantial. Each task requires many iterations and numerous circuits per iteration, and real-world applications often involve multiple tasks, scaling with the precision needed to explore the application's energy landscape. This demands an enormous number of execution shots, making practical use prohibitively expensive. We observe that VQA costs can be significantly reduced by exploiting execution similarities across an application's tasks. Based on this insight, we propose TreeVQA, a tree-based execution framework that begins by executing tasks jointly and progressively branches only as their quantum executions diverge. Implemented as a VQA wrapper, TreeVQA integrates with typical VQA applications. Evaluations on scientific and combinatorial benchmarks show shot count reductions of $25.9\times$ on average and over $100\times$ for large-scale problems at the same target accuracy. The benefits grow further with increasing problem size and precision requirements.

Comments
To appear at 31st ACM International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems (ASPLOS 2026)

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