Quantum probability provides a novel framework for formulating machine-learning (ML) problems in Hilbert space. We introduce a prototype-based learning scheme where class representatives are encoded as generative matrix product states (MPS). Because these prototypes reside in the same Hilbert space as quantum-encoded data samples, various ML tasks such as classification and clustering can be performed through geometric measures of quantum states. This approach lifts prototype learning from classical feature space to quantum Hilbert space. Benchmarks on Fashion-MNIST and a real-world electrocardiogram dataset demonstrate that our method outperforms classical prototype approaches while remaining competitive with standard black-box neural networks. We also identify an ``attraction'' effect induced by the quantum-probabilistic prototypes and introduce a dimensionality-reduction scheme based on prototype distances. Our results establish quantum states as an explainable framework for prototype learning, opening new directions for designing ML algorithms in quantum Hilbert space.
Quantum probability provides a novel framework for formulating machine-learning (ML) problems in Hilbert space. We introduce a prototype-based learning scheme where class representatives are encoded as generative matrix product states (MPS). Because these prototypes reside in the same Hilbert space as quantum-encoded data samples, various ML tasks such as classification and clustering can be performed through geometric measures of quantum states. This approach lifts prototype learning from classical feature space to quantum Hilbert space. Benchmarks on Fashion-MNIST and a real-world electrocardiogram dataset demonstrate that our method outperforms classical prototype approaches while remaining competitive with standard black-box neural networks. We also identify an ``attraction'' effect induced by the quantum-probabilistic prototypes and introduce a dimensionality-reduction scheme based on prototype distances. Our results establish quantum states as an explainable framework for prototype learning, opening new directions for designing ML algorithms in quantum Hilbert space.
In supervised quantum machine learning with classical data, classification performance critically depends on the geometry induced by quantum data embedding. Existing data-adaptive approaches rely on pairwise fidelity evaluations between samples, which scale as O(B2) for B samples and create a computational bottleneck in iterative embedding optimization. To address this issue, we propose a prototype-guided framework for efficient data-adaptive quantum embedding. Using class-prototype separation and sample-to-prototype compactness, we derive a measurable lower certificate for class-ensemble distinguishability and construct a prototype-based objective requiring only O(B) fidelity evaluations. We integrate this objective into an end-to-end pipeline that combines task-specific quantum circuit architecture optimization with continuous refinement of the data-embedding parameters. Across five benchmark datasets with up to 20 qubits, our method retains competitive quantum kernel support vector machine (SVM) performance while reducing fidelity-evaluation cost, with particularly strong gains over budget-matched pairwise optimization on T-MNIST. Geometric analyses examine how the learned embeddings relate to kernel alignment and classification margins, revealing dataset-dependent benefits and limitations. We further derive a prototype-based classifier in the reproducing kernel Hilbert space that provides an explicit witness for the SVM objective and a low-cost proxy for model selection, and extend the framework to multiple prototypes for multimodal class structures.
Abstract Prototype-based models like the Generalized Learning Vector Quantization (GLVQ) belong to the class of interpretable classifiers. Moreover, quantum-inspired methods get more and more into focus in machine learning due to its potential efficient computing. Further, its interesting mathematical perspectives offer new ideas for alternative learning scenarios. This paper proposes a quantum computing-inspired variant of the prototype-based GLVQ for classification learning. We start considering kernelized GLVQ with real- and complex-valued kernels and their respective feature mapping. Thereafter, we explain how quantum space ideas could be integrated into a GLVQ using quantum bit vector space in the quantum state space Hn H n and show the relations to kernelized GLVQ. In particular, we explain the related feature mapping of data into the quantum state space Hn H n . A key feature for this approach is that Hn H n is an Hilbert space with particular inner product properties, which finally restrict the prototype adaptations to be unitary transformations. The resulting approach is denoted as Qu-GLVQ. We provide the mathematical framework and give exemplary numerical results.
Quantum machine learning (QML) is a rapidly expanding field that merges the principles of quantum computing with the techniques of machine learning. One of the powerful mathematical frameworks in this domain is tensor networks. These networks are used to approximate high-order tensors by contracting tensors with lower ranks. Initially developed for simulating quantum systems, tensor networks have become integral to quantum computing and, by extension, to QML. Drawing inspiration from these quantum methods, specifically the Matrix Product States (MPS), we apply them in a classical machine learning setting. Their ability to efficiently represent and manipulate complex, high-dimensional data makes them effective in a supervised learning framework. Here, we present an MPS model, in which the MPS functions as both a classifier and a generator. The dual functionality of this novel MPS model permits a strategy that enhances the traditional training of supervised MPS models. This framework is inspired by generative adversarial networks and is geared towards generating more realistic samples by reducing outliers. In addition, our contributions offer insights into the mechanics of tensor network methods for generation tasks. Specifically, we discuss alternative embedding functions and a new sampling method from non-normalized MPSs.
Abstract Quantum machine learning (QML) is a rapidly expanding field that merges the principles of quantum computing with the techniques of machine learning. One of the powerful mathematical frameworks in this domain is tensor networks. These networks are used to approximate high-order tensors by contracting tensors with lower ranks. Originally developed for simulating quantum systems, tensor networks have become integral to quantum computing and, by extension, to QML. Their ability to efficiently represent and manipulate complex, high-dimensional data makes them suitable for various machine learning tasks within the quantum realm. Here, we present a matrix product state (MPS) model, where the MPS functions as both a classifier and a generator. The dual functionality of this novel MPS model permits a strategy that enhances the traditional training of supervised MPS models. This framework is inspired by generative adversarial networks and is geared towards generating more realistic samples by reducing outliers. Additionally, our contributions offer insights into the mechanics of tensor network methods for generation tasks. Specifically, we discuss alternative embedding functions and a new sampling method from non-normalized MPSs.
Abstract Generative models are a class of machine learning models that aim to learn the underlying probability distribution of data. Unlike discriminative models, generative models focus on capturing the data's inherent structure, allowing them to generate new samples that resemble the original data. To fully exploit the potential of modeling probability distributions using quantum physics, a quantum-inspired generative model known as the Born machines have shown great advancements in learning classical and quantum data over matrix product state(MPS) framework. The Born machines support tractable log-likelihood, autoregressive and mask sampling, and have shown outstanding performance in various unsupervised learning tasks. However, much of the current research has been centered on improving the expressive power of MPS, predominantly embedding each token directly by a corresponding tensor index. In this study, we generalize the embedding method into trainable quantum measurement operators that can be simultaneously honed with MPS. Our study indicated that combined with trainable embedding, Born machines can exhibit better performance and learn deeper correlations from the dataset.
Matrix-product states (MPS) have proven to be a versatile ansatz for modeling quantum many-body physics. For many applications, and particularly in one-dimension, they capture relevant quantum correlations in many-body wave functions while remaining tractable (polynomial scaling) to store and manipulate on a classical computer. This has motivated researchers to also apply the MPS ansatz to machine learning (ML) problems where capturing complex correlations in datasets is also a key requirement. Here, for the first time, we develop an MPS-based algorithm, MPSTime, for learning a joint probability distribution underlying a time-series dataset, and show how it can be used to tackle important time-series ML problems, including classification and imputation. MPSTime can efficiently learn complicated time-series probability distributions directly from data, requires only moderate maximum MPS bond dimension χ max (with values for our applications ranging between χ max = 20 − 160 ), and can be trained for both classification and imputation tasks under a single logarithmic loss function. Using synthetic and publicly available real-world datasets—spanning applications in medicine, energy, and astronomy—we demonstrate performance competitive with state-of-the-art ML approaches, but with the key advantage of encoding the full joint probability distribution learned from the data, which is useful for analyzing and interpreting its underlying structure. This manuscript is supplemented with the release of a publicly available code package that implements our approach, and can be used to reproduce all presented results. The effectiveness of the MPS-based ansatz for capturing complex correlation structures in time-series data makes it a powerful foundation for tackling challenging time-series analysis problems across science, industry, and medicine.